Here and There

I enjoyed Casino Royale. It had good action, good acting, and a decent story, even if it did fall off the tracks at times. Daniel Craig is the perfect new James Bond. It’s true what they’re saying: He’s at least as good as Sean Connery. He makes Dalton, Brosnan, and Moore even more laughable than they already were. He proved to be a more dynamic Bond than his predecessors, playing both the amateur and the budding professional convincingly.I hated Eva Green, the lead female, though. For some reason, she was fine until she opened her mouth (I’m speaking of her lines and her dental circumstances here).

All in all, I enjoyed the movie. But my god, I went into the theater at 11:15 p.m. and got out at 1:45 a.m. And it’s not just by checking the clock that I think movies are too long. Casino Royale, like many films lately, felt un-necessarily too long while I was watching it.

In addition to redoubling my efforts to keep up with all the news constantly coming out of the continent, it is now time to finally learn African geography.

The worst thing about the holidays is how nothing is open. Chalk it up to poor planning, but I went two whole days without breath-freshening gum. And why? Because it’s god’s birthday? Most stores are open even on Sundays now, the god-ordained day of rest. I mean, come oooooon!

Another thing that sucks: I have no one to play Scrabble with.

There’s no mail, so I ran out of Netflix movies pretty quickly over the past few days. Today’s mail will seem like a Jesus-brushed miracle.

Video store? See above. CLOSED.

My corner store was nice enough to be open after I got off work Sunday night, so that I was able to get chips and a Coke. God bless you, Sam.

And the bright spot: Just when I was about to get up and go over to Jack in the Box from work yesterday (Christmas Day), a coworker (one word) was kind enough to bring in Chinese food for the entire staff. It was enough that I made lunch and dinner of it. Still, I’m craving seasoned fries.

PS: I finally tried Little Star’s deep-dish pizza the other night. In general, I DO NOT LIKE deep-dish. I’m a thin crust kinda guy. But I was willing to at least give it a shot. The verdict: YUCK. Amazing, because Little Star’s thin crust is so good, it gives neighbor Pauline’s a run for its money.

Just found a newish site called About Us. It appears to be a Wikipedia-esque (is it “ish” or “esque,” really?) site that collects and indexes … websites.

Well, they’re off to a good start if they’ve got an entry for Here and There.

At first, I thought, What’s the point? Then I realized how nice it would be to learn all there is to know about a site. When it started, who started it, how it evolved, how it’s connected to other sites, etc., etc.

How original…

I’m skeptical when I hear or read about the “end” of anything. Things don’t end. They morph. Anyway…

Here’s an article on The Washington Post’s website about “The End of Blogging.” Whatever. This is good news, especially for those of us writing about more than our moods.

Surely both technology and demand will affect the supply side of blogs. But the end? Not even.

Though I created this blog largely to take sides in matters of politics, I rarely resort to name calling. And I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever published a dirty word in the title of one of my posts.

But this kind of thing has gone on long enough.

Representative (I’ve got to believe the people he “represents” could never be this reprehensible) Virgil Goode of Virginia sent a letter to his constituents announcing his opposition to a newly elected congressman’s use of the Koran for swearing-in purposes.

Given a chance to retract such incendiary comments on (where else?) Fox News, the ironically named Goode said, “I am for restricting immigration so that we don’t have a majority of Muslims elected to the United States House of Representatives.”

You know what I’m for restricting? Ignorant assholes from being elected to Congress.

I knew it!

Now, not only do I get to shed the guilt of doing crosswords, sudoku, logic games, and other mind-bender puzzles, I may have a longer, more healthy mental life because of it.

Maryland today became the third state in a week to suspend or otherwise call into question the administration of capital punishment. (California and Florida are the other two.)

Pro-death penalty advocates must be seething over these latest developments, while those who favor either the abolition of the death penalty or its humane practice should be encouraged.

Back in the early 2000s, Illionois Governor George Ryan issued a moratorium on all capital punishment in that state until a commission he establish to study its effects could publish its findings. Before leaving office, in 2003, Ryan granted clemency to all Illinois Death Row prisoners, commuting their sentences to life in prison without parole.

I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of the capital punishment argument. For that, I recommend books like Scott Turow’s Ultimate Punishment, for starters.

What I will suggest is that this latest wave of state actions, coupled with two important Supreme Court rulings in recent years on who can be executed, should elevate a national discussion on the matter.

I have to admit, the argument of “humane” executions has always struck me as odd, and not because condemned people don’t deserve them. It just seems to me if you’re the kind of person who permits capital punishment at all, it shouldn’t really matter much how someone is killed. But I guess there’s a lot about the pro-death penalty mind I don’t grasp.

We all have these thoughts … If only I could somehow make all people doubling up on escalators disintegrate, that sort of thing.

So I was waiting for a bus this morning after having brushed over a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution, and got to thinking about what kinds of things I’d require all U.S. children to do if I were god.

There’s so much more to this, of course, but I’ll start with the following three things: 1. read and know the Constitution; 2. learn a language other than English; 3. spend a year or six months in a foreign country.

1. The U.S. Constitution Go ahead, give it a whirl. There are things in there that may surprise you, such as the fact that Congress is the only governmental entity entitled “[t]o regulate commerce with … with the Indian tribes” (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). Or that the Fourth Amendment actually states that people have the right “to be secure in their persons,” which to me undercuts laws prohibiting abortion. Then there’s all the juicy due process business (Amendments V, XIV), right to trial by jury (XIII), and, my favorite, freedom of speech and press (I). Another favorite shows up in Article VI, which states, among things, that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Whether you’re a political junkie like me, or just a citizen who gives a shit, the Constitution is worth knowing.

2. Second language acquisition According to an article in Foreign Policy magazine, only 8 percent of U.S. college students take language courses. Call me a liberal arts student (which I was), but I expected the number to be slightly higher. I mean, I knew non-English speaking Americans vastly outnumber multilingual people in this country, but I didn’t realize interest in second language acquisition was so abjectly low.

In addition to the utilitarian factors of learning languages, there is also the effect it has on one’s ability to think analytically. Now, I know some of you out there prefer to turn your minds off, if not from time to time, then all the time. Fine, under the Constitution, you most likely have the right to do so.

But sharpened analytical skills, the ability to reason and argue (and possibly speaking the right language, could keep someone from playing god in your life.

3. Living abroad No, I’ve never done it, but I wish I had. I’ve been to a few foreign countries, and spent two months in one of them. The point is, exposure to other cultures makes a better, more well-rounded, and (hopefully) respectful person out of you. It’s possible that living abroad can lessen Americans’ smugness, their isolation, and can add to a sense that the world is connected in ways incomprehensible to many people in this country.

Go, stay if you want to, or come back when you feel you’ve gotten to know a place and its people.

Though I’m no mysophobe (germaphobe for all you search engines of the world), I do appreciate knowing whether rodents have been partaking of the raw ingredients that go into food I then consume at restaurants.
So this post is a celebration of that marriage of technology and social responsibility (some may say “big government”) known as restaurant inspections, delivered to the public online, free of charge.

The following are restaurant inspections for most major U.S. cities I could think of that are worth visiting, and therefore eating out in:

San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia (download PDFs, no search), Washington, D.C. (download PDF, no search)

Happy eating!

Why is it when you mention John Edwards, many people’s first reaction is something along the lines of, “Yeah, he’s okay, but I don’t like trial lawyers.”???

Where do people get off dismissing an entire profession, especially one with as much diversity as the generic term “trial lawyer” implies?

Rather than enumerate Edwards’s notable achievements as a “trial lawyer,” I recommend you read this.

Okay, fine, if you don’t believe people and corporations in power, first, have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their goods and services, and second, should be held legally liable in cases wherein those goods and services cause permanent harm, and if you enjoy generalizing across a broad spectrum of society, then I’ll allow you this slight.

Otherwise, think about such blanket statements before you say them.

Well, David Pogue at The New York Times pulls no punches in calling Windows Vista out on its near-duplication of Mac OS X.

I don’t want to like Pogue. His cheeky, cheesy on-screen effect is more aptly suited for bad children’s television, not consumer technology. That said, he knows his stuff, if only somewhat.

Watching his multimedia clip on Vista, I was waiting for his drool to start flowing. In the past, Pogue has given Apple its due, especially with iPod, MacBook, MacBook Pro, and other Intel-running machines. But he’s very middle-of-the-road, and a product like Vista seems right up his alley.

But that’s not the case. I give Pogue credit for actually making me laugh. Watch.

PS: If Vista’s ALT+TAB feature allows the user to click the application of their choice, and/or to scroll through opens apps in reverse order, the gig is up. Also, if there’s anything like Mac OS X’s dock, I quit.

Assuming George W. Bush serves out the remainder of his second term, leaving office January 20, 2009, it will mark the first time since March 4, 1825, that two consecutive presidents have served their own two terms consecutively. Wow.

The last two to accomplish this feat were, well, a little closer than Bush and Clinton. Madison begat Monroe …

I’ve been holding off commenting on the possible redesign of U.S. currency to make it more identifiable for blind people. It just didn’t necessarily strike me as a bad idea. In general, our paper money has needed some sprucing up for some time, despite recent efforts at just such an end.

So it struck me odd (if not surprising) to read that the Bush Administration is appealing the court ruling requiring the Treasury Department to construct bills easily ID-able by the blind. As I read the story in the Times, I kept wondering, What are administration lawyers going to argue pull out of their asses this time? Even after I came across this:

In the government’s appeal, Justice Department lawyers argued that visually impaired people are not denied ”meaningful access” to money by the way the nation’s currency is designed. They noted the existence of portable reading devices that the blind can use to determine the denomination of paper money. The government said the blind can also make use of credit cards rather than currency.

I’m still wondering what the objection is. After all, as the Times notes:

“In his ruling, the [District Court] judge said that of 180 countries issuing paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations.”

Not that color matters in this instance, but still.

Interestingly enough, this all comes about in the wake of the new Presidential Dollar Coins, slated to begin distribution in 2007.