April 30, 2006
Cinema Verité
After reading several strong reviews, I decided to see United 93 yesterday. The film, as you might imagine, is grim and sometimes difficult to watch. It is a powerful illustration of the cascading miscommunications between bureaucracies that contributed to the chaos of September 11th. It's also a respectful and straightforward recounting of the final minutes of the lives of the passengers on that flight. The movie is careful not to make any political statements and the director and writer, Paul Greengrass, should be commended for the gracefully light touch he brought to a difficult subject.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2006
Everything At My Fingertips
Another day, another link to the 19th Floor. This time, it gets a mention in a great article about e-books written by Bethany Broadwell and appearing in Quest magazine. Thanks for the plug, Bethany.
I've been playing around with Google Desktop Search today. It's an impressive utility and it should come in quite handy when I need to find a specific file, but it doesn't seem to be indexing everything, especially videos. I'll need to tinker with it some more. Good thing I like tinkering.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2006
Thumbs Up
The documentary about Al Franken could serve him well during a campaign, if he does decide to run for the Senate. The filmmakers chose not to use any narration, instead letting the audience be a fly on the wall during the past few years of Franken's public life. He comes across as a warm, funny, passionate man who is committed to making this country a better place for its citizens. I'm not completely sold on whether he would make a good political candidate. He has a lot of work ahead of him to convince Minnesota voters that he's "just folks." But he's certainly a more genuine human being than Senator Coleman.
And if you live in Minneapolis and haven't checked out the Riverview Theater, you really should. It's one of the last single-screen theaters in the Twin Cities and it has a grandeur and an Art Deco-inspired sophistication that you won't find in your local megaplex.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2006
Stepping Out
I'm leaving shortly to see the documentary Al Franken: God Spoke, which is part of the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival. But I wanted to thank the Grow-A-Brain blog for giving me some increased traffic today.
More later.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2006
Critic At Large: Cell
When I first read the plot summary of Cell, I was skeptical. The story of a malicious Pulse broadcast to the world's cell phones that turns their users into murderous drones sounded like a weak, even derivative, plot for a novel. But while King is obviously paying homage to Romero and Matheson, his skill as a writer makes this iteration of the familiar zombies-take-over-the-world tale engaging and disquieting. King is by no means the most nuanced of writers, but I like reading him because he knows how to balance character and plot. I cared about the characters and what happened to them as they made the trek out of a devastated Boston and into the New England countryside. Not everything in the book works. King's efforts to work in plot elements regarding computer viruses and worms felt a little clumsy. But these quibbles are small; Cell is a satisfying piece of escapist fiction that is by no means phoned in.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2006
These Are The Voyages...
Star Trek geeks are all a-twitter about news that J.J. Abrams will be directing the next Star Trek movie, due out in 2008. Abrams, the creative force behind Lost and Alias, already has some cred with geeks. What's more, his name isn't Rick Berman (Rick Berman, who oversaw the Star Trek franchise for many years, ranks only slightly less evil than Lucifer in the minds of most Star Trek fans). I'm surprised that Paramount is reviving the franchise this soon. And I'm not sure I'm thrilled about a proposed storyline revolving around Kirk and Spock during their formative years at Starfleet Academy. Sounds like Star Trek: The Wonder Years to me. But I respect Abrams as a writer and I'm willing to give him a chance. At least all of the bazillion and one Star Trek fansites will have something to write about again.
In the meantime, while I'm waiting for the movie, maybe I should follow this guy's example and redecorate my condo to look like the interior of a starship. Check it out:
Doesn't this decor just scream "sophisticated, successful, eminently datable single man living here"?
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2006
Life Lessons
A colleague sent me a link to a NYT article discussing an emerging trend: social service agencies teaching adults with cognitive disabilities about sexuality and romance. I believe I posted a similar article a couple months ago, but it's good to see this meme taking hold in the media. The fact that people with disabilities experience sexual desire isn't newsworthy in itself, but the fact that American society is (slowly) beginning to normalize its views on disability and sexuality certainly merits attention. I was somewhat surprised to read that between 50 and 85 percent of women are sexually assaulted before age 18 (the assault rates for men are relatively lower, but still astonishing). These numbers reveal a disturbing disconnect. On the one hand, the myth of the asexual or the eternally sexually innocent person with a disability still prevails in our culture. On the other hand, these figures suggest that people with disabilities--especially women--are statistically likely targets for sexual violence.
I strongly believe that society's stubborn refusal to completely abandon that myth directly contributes to the ongoing abuse of people with disabilities. When we deny these adults the right to seek out relationships and express their sexuality in a safe and emotionally rewarding context, we isolate and marginalize them, leaving them at greater risk for stumbling into a predatory relationship. Hopefully, programs like the one discussed in the article will spread across the nation and give people with disabilities a more healthy regard for themselves and their potential as romantic partners.
Hell, even I could use that once in a while.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:46 PM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2006
Destroy Everything You Touch
I decided to check out Ladytron at First Ave last night. The band members came out on stage all dressed in black (natch), and except for a few equipment problems, they put on a good show. Ladytron is sort of a female version of the Cure, if the Cure was a little more menacing and a little less co-dependent in its lyrics. I was particularly impressed with the vocal chops of Mira Aroyo, one of the lead singers. I thought her voice had been altered and remixed in the studio, but her singing actually does have a spectral quality that is distinctive and gorgeous. And she has a Ph.D. from Oxford in genetics, which, when combined with the whole music thing, puts her at about a 9 on Mark's Scale of Hotness.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2006
Know Your Opponent
I had the opportunity to be part of a live audience for yesterday's Midday radio broadcast. The guests were Newt Gingrich and Vin Weber. I can't be one-hundred percent sure, but Newt seems to be positioning himself for a run at the presidency in 2008. He sure sounded like a candidate. A few of his pearls of wisdom: Iranian-sponsored terrorists are going to nuke an American city at some point in the future, so we'd better start teaching duck-and-cover in the schools again. And Europe is a collection of broken socialist states with stagnant economies (never mind that countries like Spain, Ireland, and the UK are experiencing vigorous growth).
I had a picture of me and Newt smiling like we're best friends, but it somehow got deleted from my nurse's phone. It's probably just as well. Something like that could cause all kinds of headaches if it leaked out during my future campaign.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2006
I Need You So Much Closer
My friend Jeannette and I saw Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie last night at Northrop Auditorium. Franz Ferdinand: probably one of the most bass-heavy sets I've heard. These Scotsmen truly know how to rock the house. They featured an amazing three-person drum performance that went on for approximately ten minutes. Death Cab: A flawless mix of old and new songs, including a blistering rendition of "Transatlanticism." The audience stood for the entire concert, which proves that not all hipster bands play for the shoegazing, near-comatosed crowd. Belle and Sebastien fans, I'm looking at you. My next concert may be Imogen Heap at the Varsity in May.
I thought I'd mark the end of the workweek with a little splash of color:
You can find more here.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:45 PM | Comments (1)
April 20, 2006
Working Stiff
Another late night, but not because I was stuck at the office. Well, I was there until six, but I got to have some fun afterwards. More details tomorrow. The screen is getting all blurry.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2006
My Second Home
It's 7:45 in the evening and I'm still here at work, trying to meet a deadline for submitting something to our funders. I really don't mind these long hours, although it would be nice if I could simply leave my office and walk home. It's times like this that I wish they would hurry up and finish the light rail corridor between the two downtowns.
You would not believe how quiet it is around here. Cemeteries and government buildings after 5:00 p.m. are equally creepy.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:56 PM | Comments (1)
April 18, 2006
Padding The Résumé
According to the Boston Globe, blogging is a good way to promote your career. Apparently, a blog devoted to a specialized topic will get you noticed and lead to that high-paying consulting gig that you always wanted. You know, the one where you can spend four hours (five max) telecommuting each day and still earn enough for a down payment on that vacation home in Cabo. I'm not sure how that nugget of advice applies to me. This blog takes such a scattershot approach that I don't stand out in any one particular area. Oh, sure, I'm probably the most engaging writer on disability policy issues that you'll ever meet, but I doubt that's going to get me a raise from the Commissioner of Human Services. Of course, I don't blog in hopes of monetary reward. As I've said before, this is a labor of love for me.
We'll get into my compulsive attention-seeking habits some other time.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2006
Power User
I've been using two flat-screen displays at work for the past few weeks. I've previously wondered why anyone would need more than one monitor hooked up to a computer, but now I get it. I love being able to reference a document on one screen while I'm drafting something on the other screen. And since I'm stuck using Internet Explorer, I can have two browser windows open simultaneously. There's also something about having two screens in front of me that makes my inner geek giggle uncontrollably. I've considered setting up something similar at home, but I think that will have to wait until the day I can justify the purchase of a second monitor as a business expense.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2006
Next Year In Jerusalem
I hope everyone is having a good Easter/Passover holiday. While I am a firm nonbeliever, I've enjoyed a few Pesach seders with Jewish friends and that particular holiday's underlying themes of freedom and social justice have always resonated with me. It's also the only holiday I know of where it's acceptable to read at the table. And I always enjoy a good bowl of matzo ball soup.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2006
Geeking Out
I feel a little sheepish admitting that I hadn't heard of the annual Minicon, the science fiction convention that's being held in Bloomington this weekend, until someone showed me an article about it in the newspaper. Harlan Ellison is one of the guests of honor, an author whose work I admire. And Doug Friauf, who sits with me on the Minneapolis Advisory Committee on People with Disabilities, is the guest fan of honor. I briefly debated forcing my nurses to sit through a weekend of lectures with titles like "How to Destroy the Earth" and "Battlestar Galactica Geek-Out." But I think that I'll wait until next year. Whenever I drag my nurses to geeky or political events, I like to give them advance warning so they have time to prepare themselves.
I just watched a brief video clip of the upcoming Heroes of Might and Magic V. I might invest a new video card just so I can play this game in all its 3D-rendered glory. It looks amazing.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2006
Wide Open Space
Kudos to the Minneapolis City Council for approving plans to develop a park on the last parcel of city-owned downtown riverfront property. Instead of letting the land be used for yet another condo development, the Council wisely chose to add a bit of greenery to a downtown that is sorely lacking much in the way of trees or any other chlorophyll-based lifeform. The park should nicely complement the new Guthrie and I look forward to checking it out once it's complete.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2006
Head In The Sand
There are times when I feel sorry for creationists and their incrementally better-dressed cousins, intelligent design advocates. It must take a tremendous act of willful ignorance to maintain blind adherence to an archaic worldview that is crumbling under the weight of an ever-growing mountain of scientific evidence. Every week brings news of the unearthing of yet another marker on evolution's long and winding road. Why, it's enough to make the average creationist want to cancel his/her newspaper subscription. The effort to tune out the media's coverage of discoveries of new fossils must be exhausting. I wonder if they get migraines from the strain. I'm offering an aspirin to the next creationist I meet, right before I start making denigrating remarks about their intelligence.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:11 PM | Comments (1)
April 12, 2006
Banana Republic
A young Florida man with Duchenne's muscular dystrophy is going home to die after an extended hospitalization. He was placed on a portable ventilator, but the State of Florida is putting him on a waiting list for home nursing care. Florida's community-based services program is dramatically underfunded and it's unlikely he'll be moved off the waiting list anytime soon, so this young man is going home knowing that he will probably die shortly thereafter.
You would think that a country like ours could establish a uniform standard of services for people with disabilities, regardless of geography. Seven years after Olmstead, people with disabilities in certain regions :cough the South :cough can only choose between institutionalization or near-certain death. I'll probably get flak from any Southerners reading this, but I remain convinced that Reconstruction is a task that remains unfinished.
Thanks to Nick Dupree for bringing this story to my attention.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:28 PM | Comments (1)
April 11, 2006
I Turn My Camera On
YouTube is the latest Web 2.0 application to generate ear-shattering decibels of buzz amongst tech journalists and bloggers. It's basically Flickr, but with videos instead of photos. However, after browsing through some of its offerings, I'd say that the promise of YouTube is not yet fully realized. A lot of the videos are copyrighted material--clips of television shows, especially anime. Then there are the homebrewed videos of cute young women doing something naughty or seductive or whatever. Yawn. Perhaps the next Kevin Smith will one day be discovered via YouTube, but for now the site is firmly in the grips of narcissists and voyeurs. Oh, and the anime freaks. Can't forget the anime freaks.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2006
Keeping The Peace
A couple of recent homicides have generated a lot of press concerning the relative "safety" of Minneapolis. Now, like any city, Minneapolis has neighborhoods where crime is more prevalent, particularly the North Side. Unfortunately, as in most cities, homicides in the more impoverished neighborhoods don't receive much attention in the media. These two particular murders--one about eight blocks from my building in Downtown and the other in the trendy Uptown area, arguably received more attention because the victims were middle-class and white and they occurred in neighborhoods that get a lot of visitors from the suburbs.
I don't see either of these shootings as anything more than aberrations. But it was discouraging, albeit unexpected, to see Governor Pawlenty make a clumsy attempt to make political hay out of these events. He accused our mayor of slashing the budget for police officers. The Mayor shot back, and rightly so, that cuts in state aid to local government forced Minneapolis to reduce the number of officers on the street. The Twin Cities, along with the Iron Range, are favorite scapegoats of Republican state lawmakers and they never miss a chance to score points with suburban and rural voters by painting these areas as crime-ridden and/or replete with people dependent on welfare.
Of course, all of this bickering ignores the fact that both state and local governments, along with the business community, could do a lot more to provide opportunities to the kids I see congregating outside Block E. I have no illusions that we can save every kid, but surely we could give them better options than hanging around a sterile urban mall.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2006
Ready, Set, Go!
I just returned from the Race for Justice, a charity event to raise money for the Loan Repayment Assistance Program. LRAP provides subsidies to public interest attorneys with outstanding loans. I finished the 5K route in approximately 53 minutes without even breaking a sweat. I'm pretty sure I could have easily done another five or even ten kilometers before I would start cramping up. The key is to stretch properly and load up on carbs the night before. You would not believe what a pain in the ass it is to push spaghetti noodles down my g-tube.
And a big shoutout to my friend Erin and the other race organizers who made sure those of us on wheels could safely traverse the course. I was especially grateful for the pieces of plywood across some rather menacing rail tracks.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:32 PM | Comments (1)
April 08, 2006
Accolades
Battlestar Galactica recently won a prestigious Peabody award. While some of the episodes in the second season were of middling quality, the finale had me completely engrossed (even though my TiVo accidentally lopped off the last 60-90 seconds). If the SciFi Channel keeps getting awards like this, perhaps it will stop churning out those awful cheese-laden Saturday night "original movies" and greenlight more thoughtful content like BG. I'd love to see the network do a miniseries adaptation of Ender's Game or Rendezvous with Rama, both of which seem to be stuck in development hell.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2006
Surely This Is A Sign Of The Apocalypse
Now that Windows XP can run on Macs, I've flirted with the idea of making the switch to one of those stylish white boxes. After some consideration, however, I've decided to maintain my allegiance to the Wintel empire. I like the modularity of PCs and being able to pick and choose the components that will go in my rig. And I have enough legacy software, especially games, to make me wary of investing in a new system that may or may not run those titles. One never knows when one will be consumed with the desire to fire up Alpha Centauri at 2 a.m. and nuke those whiny Lord's Believers back to the Stone Age.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:56 PM | Comments (1)
April 06, 2006
It's Hard Out There For A Gimp
The Man is still keeping us down. Subway systems are inaccessible, driving schools are refusing to offer ASL interpreters to deaf students, and the unemployment rate of people with disabilities is stuck in the high 60s. It's time to accerate my preparations for the revolution. Let's see, I need to move the weapons cache to that abandoned barn. And I need to set up my Internet recruitment efforts? Anyone out there have a knack for forging documents? I already have an explosives guy, so I can scratch that off the list.
I am so going to get a visit from Homeland Security because of this post.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:25 PM | Comments (3)
April 05, 2006
Just What The Doctor Ordered
Massachusetts has passed a law to mandate health care coverage for nearly all of its residents. As the New York Times notes, the legislation has elements that should appeal to both sides of the political aisle. Conservatives will like the emphasis on personal responsibility. The bill requires every Massachusetts resident to obtain health insurance by July 1, 2007. Those who can afford health insurance but do not purchase it by the deadline will be subject to a penalty through the state income tax return. Progressives will cheer the expansion of publicly subsidized health care coverage to children and more affordable coverage for people with low to moderate incomes. Private insurance companies will receive subsidies to provide most of the coverage to the 500,000+ uninsured individuals in Massachusetts.
It is said that the states are America's laboratories for testing innovative policies. If Massachusetts' experiment is successful, other states could be convinced of the merits of providing something approximating universal health care coverage for their own residents. And until politicians come to grips with the fact that a single-payer system is the only way to restrain spiraling costs, public-private hybrids like this are probably the next best solution. Of course, the devil is in the details. I don't envy the policymakers who will need to decide what services to cover, what the deductibles and co-pays will be, how to assure parity between physical and mental health benefits, and so forth. But it's good to see states tackling universal health care while the federal government remains asleep at the wheel.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2006
Bionic Woman
A short entry tonight because it's past nine and I just got home. Via Digg, here's a story about a woman, blinded several years ago in a car accident, who has had some vision restored with the assistance of a small eyeglass-mounted camera that is jacked into her brain. The technology requires her to wear a bulky computer and she can only see flashes of light, but it offers yet another glimpse into a future where neural implants are the next wave of innovation in medicine. Between genetic manipulation and cybernetic augments like this, our collective definition of "human" might need some serious reworking in the next hundred years.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2006
Teenage Angst
I attended a performance of Hamlet at the Guthrie last Friday. This is the last play to be performed on the Guthrie's original stage before moving to its new facility in the fall. This particular interpretation employed a World War II theme in which the men wore suits and tuxedos with tails and the women wore dresses and big hats. It wasn't the most original reimagining and the director added a few lines to elicit laughs from the audience, but the lead actor was appropriately manic and brooding. Now, I feel like picking up an annotated collection of Shakespeare's plays to go over the phrases whose meanings were more obscure. I took an entire semester of Shakespearean lit in college and I had this great hardcover anthology, but unfortunately I borrowed it from a friend because I was too cheap to buy it.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2006
Not Going Anywhere
You guys didn't really think I was gone, did you? The whole bit about Scientology simply screamed "April Fool's!"
However, I promise that I'll never say anything more about departing the blogosphere unless I absolutely mean it.
Regular programming resumes tomorrow.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2006
Hanging It Up
This morning, I woke up and realized I have absolutely nothing left to say. After all, how many entries can one person write about how incompetent the Bush Administration is? How many entries can one person write about his assorted geek obsessions, most of which are of interest only to the writer? And I'm sure you're as tired of reading about my hapless attempts to find a girlfriend as much as I'm tired of writing about them. I mean, who am I kidding? I'm never going to get a book deal from posting any of this crap. I've basically been phoning it in for the past few months, anyway. It's time to find a new hobby, one that doesn't keep me chained to this computer. In fact, I'm seriously considering donating my computer to an elementary school or something. When I think of all the hours I've wasted at this desk, I'm filled with a profound emptiness that is starting to make Scientology look pretty damn appealing. There's a Scientology center just down the street. Maybe I'll go in for a personality test later today.
So long, everybody. It's been real.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:15 PM | Comments (7)