Block That Hyperbole!

I really am not in a foul mood this morning. But something about a letter to the editor in this morning's local newspaper struck me as ironic, if not just plain weird. The letter writer writes that she accidently left her purse in a cart at a Wal-Mart last week. A Good Samaritan found the purse and arranged for its return with nothing missing. She goes on to say, "My faith in humanity is restored thanks to this kind person."

Really?? That's all it took? She now has faith in all of humanity, including the Cheney family, Al-Queda, Barry Manilow and Paris Hilton? For a purse and its contents? Wow! Makes me wonder what would have happened if someone had found and returned something really valuable like a diamond ring.

Sorry I'm so cynical. I'll get off my duff and go to the Farmer's Market. Maybe some fresh vegetables will restore my faith in humanity

Will The Stupidity Never End?

I have long ago stopped being surprised at the latest developments in Bush/Cheney perfidy. So, why should I be outraged at the latest Cheney lie? I don't know, I just am.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Movie Report: The Informant

I was interested in seeing The Informant, Steven Soderbergh's new movie with Matt Damon for several reasons. The events it depicts, the whistle-blowing scandal of Mark Whitacre at the giant food processor, Archer Daniel Midland, located in Decatur, just 30 miles west from here, were familiar to me as an avid newspaper consumer. I have a soft spot for whistle blowers, having represented several of them in the course of my work as a lawyer, and I know how difficult life can be for them.

Whistle blowers, almost by definition, are misfits, odd ducks who do not fit in to standard corporate culture. The people who fit in do not blow whistles because they are too comfortable. Whitacre was the archtypical whistle blower, a brilliant scientist, a congenital liar whose motives for blowing the whistle on ADM were so mixed with self-interest that they were impossible to sort out.

It turns out Whitacre was stealing from ADM, how much even he couldn't keep straight. In the middle of his lies, he wound up turning in ADM for price fixing and courageously wearing a wire at work to get the evidence. But, ironically, Whitacre was sentenced to more time in prison for his larceny of millions than the top ADM executives ever served for their stealing of billions from American consumers through price fixing.

Steven Soderbergh, the director of The Informant, made the iconic whistle blower movie with Erin Brokovich in 2000. In many ways, The Informant is better than Brokovich in that it paints the various protagonists in more realistic shades of gray, than the black and white of a righteous woman up against a corrupt corporation. For the same reason, the movie is less satisfying. There is less emotional release when the movie does not delineate who the good guys and the bad guys are and it is less certain that good prevailed in the end.

As good as Damon is, however, I would always rather watch Julia Roberts with her perky good looks and push up bra, so between the two Soderbergh whistle-blowing movies, I would have to rate Brokovich higher. Not to mention that the whistle-blower's lawyer comes off much better in Brokovich than the doofus from Taylorville in Informant.

I gave the movie four stars out of a possible five, meaning it is above average, but not brilliant.

Keep Him Away From My Funeral

Okay, it's time to blog again. (Don't complain about the long absence, just be thankful for what you get.)

Today, I went to the funeral of an uncle by marriage. The uncle who preached the funeral sermon was another uncle, a brother-in-law of the uncle who died. He started out by saying that M. had a gift for spotting other people's faults and pointing them out to them -- in love. Sheesh. I thought a funeral was when you said good things about people.

Reminds me of a funeral of an old family friend I went to in that same church a few years ago. The minister, who was rather far from being a gifted speaker, said that you're supposed to say something good about the deceased, and he had thought and thought and thought and then came up with this idea. Old A. was known for driving very slowly down the highway on his way to the coffee shop in town, with his car half on the shoulder and half on the highway, while a big line up of traffic crawled along behind him. And that just made the minister realize that we should all take a lesson from that and slow down in life.

With love like that, who needs hate?

A Wonderful Wedding Weekend

I don't think I've mentioned it on this blog before, but Son Number Two got married this past weekend on Long Island in New York. It was a wonderful wedding and we had a great time partying at a rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception. The ceremony and reception were held in the back yard of the Bride's uncle. Here are some pictures:

But Now Everything Is Fine

So, I'm in Portland, Oregon, now with my friends from 45 years ago. Everything is beautiful. Here are pictures of Marv and Carlene's house and gardens. Later today we're going to take a trip to the Pacific coast.

Another Humorless Rant

Anyone who thinks that the private sector is always better at running things than the government should try to take a plane trip.

Last week, Son Number Two and his fiance were going to join us in a family vacation for a few days in Pentwater, MI. I arranged for them to fly out of LaGuardia in NYC early in the morning on Thursday, get to Pentwater about noon, and then they would have two and one-half days with us before flying back to New York on Sunday morning. The plane was to leave at 6:00 a.m. and it takes them an hour to get to the airport, so they had to get up at 3:00 a.m. in order to get to the airport an hour ahead of departure, like you have to do these days. Delta had their telephone number to let them know of any last-minute changes. So, what happens, they get to the airport only to find out the flight has been canceled because of mechanical problems (the weather was fine.) Another flight was canceled too, and the passengers for both flights had to go to the same single window to get rebooked. They wound up waiting two hours to get their new flight information. Their plane finally did leave late that evening, about half an hour after the scheduled time, and they got into Grand Rapids at midnight, so the first half day of the two and one half days was gone.

Yesterday, I flew from Chicago to Portland, with a connecting flight at Salt Lake City. We were scheduled to leave at 5:20 p.m. The pilot made an announcement 10 minutes before departure time telling us that we were going to be leaving on time and that the plane was full, so people with two carry-on pieces of luggage should stow one under the seat and one in the overhead bin so there would be room for everyone's luggage. About 10 minutes after we were supposed to have left, the pilot came back on the intercom to tell us that the plane was overloaded because more people showed up than expected (remember just 20 minutes earlier he had told us the plane was full) so they needed 18 volunteers to get off in exchange for $600 in Delta money and accommodations for the night. Lights went on all over the plane as people jumped to volunteer. About 10 minutes later, they told us they had enough volunteers and as soon as the paperwork was processed, we would take off.

After another 15 minutes, we were told they were still processing the paper work, and as soon as it was done, we would be leaving. After another 15 minutes, the pilot was back to tell us they had decided that nobody needed to get off after all because they would take off in the opposite direction than usual on the runway. They hoped the extra wind speed would enable us to get off the ground. They HOPED? Let me off!!! I'll walk to Portland.

The long and short of it is that we did take off and got to Salt Lake City more than an hour late, which would have been too late for the connecting flight, had Delta not graciously decided to keep that plane on the ground until we got there. So, those people weren't too happy to see us, even though I was happy to see them.

This is no way to run a business -- any business.

Remember Me?

I promised a friend I would start blogging again, so here goes. Don't ask me why I stopped writing at the end of May, I just did. It didn't seem like I had anything new, creative or interesting to post. It still doesn't. But, I need to write, so I'll just post boring stuff until my creative juices get flowing again.

Right now, I'm waiting at Midway Airport in Chicago for my flight to Portland, Oregon, by way of Salt Lake City. They have rocking chairs in the concourse C waiting area. Fantastic!

Last week, we were in Pentwater, MI with The Wife's family. We had a good time. The sunsets and weather were spectacular as usual.

Next week, Sun Number Two gets married on Long Island, NY. That will be exciting. I will get back from Portland on Sunday night, work two days and then head off to NYC on Wednesday, back the following Monday. The Wife's school starts the day after we get back, so she's skipping the trip to Portland.

Okay, I kept my promise; I posted. I'll try to make it interesting next time.

Jimmy Johns Thinks I'm Too Serious

Two posts below, on May 15, I went on a mini-rant about the Jimmy Johns commercial depicting hostages calling for Jimmy Johns sandwiches, while cowering under furniture in what turns out to be a bank, not a school, and vowed to eat no more Jimmy Johns. Now, some anonymous commenter from Los Angeles, who was involved in making the commercial, takes me to task for taking myself too seriously, saying the commercial is meant to be funny. Here's the comment:

"This was in fact a bank robbery situation, and I know first hand as I was involved in the making of this commercial. It is meant to be humorous, and I believe it achieved that. Now you can either laugh at this commercial and make your day much better, or you can choose to take yourself way too seriously and add years of stress on to your life for worrying about things like this.

7:13 PM, May 29, 2009"

I'll leave it up to regular readers to decide whether I take myself too seriously or not. What I'm interested in is whether people think the intention to make something humorous and the author's subjective belief that it, indeed, is funny, is sufficient to label any critics sour pusses who add years of stress to their lives (another interesting question: which is better to add years of stress to your life or live a shorter life? I think the Anonymous commenter meant that I will shorten my life because of the stress, not add to it, but precision in communication is not Mr. Anonymous's strong point, as you will see if you watch the commercial.) I guess Mr. Anonymous's point is that everything is fair game, as long as the author intends it to be funny. So, what commercials is Mr. Anonymous working on next? Starving children in Africa finding a cell phone in the sand and using it to call for a Jimmy Johns delivery? Airplane hijackers diverting their crash into the World Trade Center at the last minute because they want to finish their Jimmy Johns sandwiches before going to Paradise?

I'm sorry, I don't believe my only choice is to laugh at the commercial and make my day better or lengthen (actually shorten) my life by taking myself too seriously. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to continue not taking myself too seriously and laughing at myself. I'm also going to continue to be outraged at stupid commercials that are not funny, no matter what the inarticulate authors of it intended. And, I'm still not going to eat Jimmy Johns sandwiches. Ever. Again.

JACK Report: Playing This Weekend in Chicago and New York

If you're in the Chicago area, you can catch the JACK Quartet Saturday night at The Music Institute of Chicago. The Wife and I are going up, hoping to catch a glimpse and a word or two, maybe even a meal with Son Number Two. Sunday night, the Quartet is back in New York City, playing at (Le) Poisson Rouge, opening for The Respect Sextet.

No More Jimmy Johns

I don't watch much television, so I am probably naive about what is considered acceptable these days. Last night, the commercial for Jimmy Johns sandwiches shown on our local NBC station during The Office shocked me as I haven't been shocked for a long time. It depicts a Columbine school massacre with masked terrorists shooting up a school as children and teachers scream and try to hide. While cowering under a desk, a teacher pulls out a cell phone and calls for a sandwich delivery from Jimmy Johns. The delivery boy shows up, and the terrorist rips off his ski mask and says, "Who ordered Jimmy Johns?"

Is nothing over the limit these days? What's next, an ad for shampoo that keeps hair looking gorgeous through a 9/11 disaster? A spot remover that can take the blood and brains off Jackie Kennedy's jacket?

Since the Supreme Court's ridiculous decision giving First Amendment free speech rights to corporations, such despicable advertising is legal and cannot be made illegal. But there is no law that says I have to eat Jimmy Johns sandwiches, ever again. And I won't. Here's the ad, if you have a strong stomach:

JACK Report: The DVD is Out

Mode Records on Monday released JACK Quartet's first album. I haven't heard it yet because I have been promised a free copy by Son Number Two. You can buy directly from the record company for $14.99 for the CD; $19.99 for the DVD. You can get it from Amazon for as low as $16.74 plus $3.00 shipping. Or, you can order it from Netflix. I have to warn you though, that this is not easy listening music.

Ebertfest Report: A Strange Winnipeg

The movie I have most enjoyed at this year's Ebertfest, although it certainly is not to everyone's taste, is the quirky My Winnipeg. It was written and directed by Guy Madden, who has lived all his life in Winnipeg and has a normal day job as a professor in film studies at the University of Winnipeg. He specializes in making quirky movies, and he makes what he wants to make, how he wants to make them without regard to movie conventions. Everything in My Winnipeg was done in one take, and if a scene was slightly out of focus, so be it.

The movie was commissioned by by the city fathers and was supposed to be a documentary about Winnipeg, designed to attract tourists. It turned out to be a docu-fantasy, with real events being told in a warped mixture of fact and fiction (all of it true, however, since "fact" and "truth" are not the same.) Madden explained that when he was young, his aunt would take him to see travelogues. She would say, "We're going to Morocco tonight," and he would interpret it and report it at school as that they were actually going to Morocco. He would often fall asleep during the travelogue, and would experience those documentaries n a half-dreaming state. The dream-like movie he made is often just plain weird. For example, in the early 20th century, there was actually an incident in which a herd of horses, stampeding from a burning stable, fled into a river and froze to death, with the horse heads sticking above the ice until the spring thaw. Madden takes some archival footage of the dead horses and transforms it into a gruesome comedy, with the people from Winnipeg coming out to picnic on the horse heads. (For a hilarious account of the making of this part of the film, see his "documentary diariest" at this blog.)

Roger Ebert, as always, said it best. In his published remarks in the program booklet, he said,

"His (Madden's) imagination frees the lurid possibilities of the banal. He rewrites history; when that fails, he creates it.

Aside from Ebert himself, Madden is one of the funniest people ever to appear on the stage at Eberfest. His lack of pretense was refreshing. He quipped his way through the question and answer session, at one point telling people that if they felt like sleeping through his movie, he didn't blame them, he got 45 good minutes of shut-eye during the showing Thursday himself. When asked how the city fathers of Winnipeg reacted to his product, there was a long pregnant pause, during which the audience started laughing, topped off by Madden saying, "They're okay with it now."

I have to warn readers, however, that not everyone is going to like this movie. It is shot in black and white, and the dreaminess of the film, is going to be off-putting to some people. What is refreshing, however, is that Madden doesn't really give a damn whether you like it or not. I gave it five stars.

Ebertfest Report: Days of Peace and Music

The 11th Annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival kicked off last night with a showing of an almost 40-year-old movie, Woodstock. Watching the movie at the historic Virginia Theater is much better than being at Woodstock. There is just as much peace and music, but with plenty of food, toilet facilities and no rain and mud.

Roger is back for this festival, after missing the last two years because of health problems. His face contorted because cancer has eaten away part of his jaw, unable to speak because he lost part of his tongue, he was nevertheless his usual ebullient self, still able to say on his blog earlier this week, "I was born at the center of the universe, and have had good fortune for all of my days." I don't think he was putting on a good front; he really means it.

But for the faithful Ebertfest attenders (I have been taking vacation to attend all of the films for all but the first couple of years,) we do not consider Roger's state of health fortunate. He is the heart and soul of the festival, adding much more than just his name and selection of films, but also his witty introductions and commentary to the movies, and his interviews of directors, actors, and producers. One of the highlights of my life is sitting at the Virginia Theater five years ago after the showing of Werner Herzog's movie, Invincible and listening to Ebert and Herzog talk about movies until two o'clock in the morning with the audience sitting there, no one leaving, absolutely entertained and enchanted.

For the last two years, and now this year, other people have introduced the films, and hosted the conversations, but no one has the knowledge and the wit to inform and entertain like Ebert.

Oh, Woodstock? It still holds up after 40 years. Seeing and listening to Joan Baez sing "Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot," with no accompaniment as 400,000 people listen, without a sound, sends chills up my spine. (I saw Baez later that summer in Chicago, a little more pregnant, standing up on stage barefooted and absolutely stealing the heart of this Amish farmboy.)

I gave the movie four stars. Have to run; another movie to see.

Update: To clarify, I was not at the original Woodstock, although I did see the movie when it first came out in 1970. I don't think I would have enjoyed actually being at Woodstock. I have never been a fan of rain, mud and anarchy. I would have bought my ticket in advance and been outraged that people were coming in over the fence without paying. I would have gone home after it started raining and the site turned into a field of mud. The director's cut, which we saw Wednesday night, was nearly four hours long, at least an hour too long, in my opinion. The story of what happened was told in the original movie. The best musical performances -- Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Crosby Stills and Nash, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Santana, Sha Na Na and Jimi Hendrix were already in the movie. The director's cut added a lot of music, but had me fidgeting by 11 o'clock p.m. approached, with no end in sight.

Have You Ever Wondered How My Blog Looks In Arabic?

What do you mean it has never occurred to you to wonder what my blog looks like in Arabic? I think it probably actually reads better in Arabic than English. Take a look at this. (Somebody from Riyadi, Saudi Arabia, visted my blog to read my report on Silas Marner. They used google translate to translate it into Arabian.)