Author: ssw15

NCAA tournament (Men, Division 1) continues: I’m down to two of my Final Four, now that USC’s out. Oh well. And, there’s been no Cinderella? Geez. At least there are close and interesting games – Georgetown was real close to losing to Vanderbilt.

The polar bear cub, Knut, is soo cute.

Thought this was an interesting article on the death of the Pakistani cricket team’s coach in Jamaica – (a) weird mystery – what happened to the coach; (b) me being the mystery fan, who probably read too much about fictitious Scotland Yard detectives and watched too much of the British movies on PBS, of course I’d wonder; (c) seriously – murder involving cricket? That was straight out of an Inspector Morse mystery on tv (which, by the way, the episode in question was funny just to watch Sgt. Lewis get smacked on the head by a cricket bat and another character not reveal Morse’s first name) or from a novel by writer Elizabeth George (okay, admittedly, I didn’t read the book yet and I kind of watched the PBS movie version); and (d) Jamaica’s deputy police commissioner was an ex-Scotland Yarder? Cool!

Ok, now I’m just being morbid…

Oh, let’s just go really morbid: lady cooks her husband. Literally. Clearly, I need to get a life, but the link on MSNBC caught my eye and who was I to resist? Actually, I can imagine a strange murder mystery story out of that; wonder if I should write that up.

And, some interesting stuff: Clive James on the web – Slate’s posting his interviews, in addition to his articles. I hadn’t seen Clive James since PBS briefly aired his stuff years ago. I was younger and still very much an Anglophile, and he seemed funny, but turns out he’s really erudite (funny and erudite not being incompatible anyway). And, yeah, he’s Australian, so that may or may not mean his having a certain outlook (Australian trend being what it is in the media, but Clive James pre-dated that, I believe – and he’s not Mel Gibson, thank goodness). Impressive stuff.

Interesting story – Miami-Dade community college‘s chess team in the Final Four of collegiate chess – having already beaten Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, etc… Cool. Actually, I had no idea that there was a Final Four for chess. Man, talk about March Madness there.

As for NCAA March Madness – three of my Final Four are still intact. Of the my Sweet 16 so far (well, of those that made it to Sweet 16 anyway) – Tennessee is out; Ohio State beat them. I guess this is the year for teams ranked number 1? Not to mention that Tennessee alumnus, Peyton Manning (the QB who won the Super Bowl this year) can now focus on doing his shtick for Saturday Night Live this weekend without worrying about his school’s team.

NY Times’ Holland Carter on Asia Week.

Best wishes to Elizabeth Edwards; not yet sure where I am in terms of deciding the presidential picks (way, way too early – seriously, I just can’t get into it, except as viewing it as a spectator sport that’s just nuts; plus are we pushing Super Duper Super Tuesday – what used to be just Primary Day for a few states – into Election Day proper?) – I do think candidate John Edwards is in a tough spot, at the personal level anyway.

I am behind on watching tv again. Aargh. Maybe I should take up watching tv on the internet. According to TV Guide tv blogs, “Ugly Betty” and “Scrubs” had great episodes Thursday night.

It’s Brooklyn Restaurant Week, March 19-30, 2007.

Ah, got to love these obnoxious free speech cases that somehow make it to the US Supreme Court; they kind of make you shake your head and sigh. Only these kinds of cases give you headlines like “Supreme Court hears ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’ case.”

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick posts her take on the oral arguments on the “Bong Hit 4 Jesus” case, plus she poses how this alternate universe could have been with a Ch. J. Alberto Gonzalez and J. Harriet Miers.

The NCAA tournament has some curious commercials:

Bud Light has this ad where Driver and His Girlfriend picks up a hitchhiker – who, the Girlfriend notes: “He has an ax.”/ Driver: “He has Bud Light.” (yeah, a whole bunch of bottles, like that’s a consolation; even though Hitchhiker has a beard and wears flannel, he didn’t look like a woodsman) / Girlfriend: “He has an ax!” / Driver asks Hitchhiker: “What’s with the ax?”/ Hitchhiker: “Umm, bottle opener?” And, so Hitchhiker joins them. The commercial closes with Driver pulling up to pick up another hitchhiker, one who wears a hockey mask and has a chainsaw and – what else? – some Bud Light. Girlfriend looks at Driver like he’s really crazy now, and Hitchhiker, who’s sitting in the back with the beer and the ax, also gives Driver the same look. Hitchhiker: “He has a chainsaw!” Commercial closes before Driver goes through the whole “But, he has Bud Light!” thing. A strangely amusing commercial, I think.

Sprint brings back the Asian Guy and Silly White Guy from last year’s NCAA tournament ads for this year’s Sprint NCAA tournament commercials. Asian Guy has his cool cell phone, so cool that you can watch NCAA on the teeny-weeny screen (ok, so I’m not very impressed); Silly White Guy… well, he really needs a new phone. Still not sure what to make of either of them: Asian Guy has way too much tolerance to put up with Silly White Guy for a friend – maybe they were frat brothers or something. Oh, well…

Well, there goes one of my Final Four: Louisville’s out.

NY Times reading –

training and directing workers to skilled work: as a mechanic. Apparently, our increasingly computerized world means we need car mechanics who can diagnose car illnesses with computers and with other mechanics retiring, there’s a real need. I liked that the article gives a little hope to getting people attracted to fields again. We might even get more women in a field long male dominated. Now, if only our public education system can jump on this idea, maybe we could develop a skilled labor force rather than moan how the kids can’t seem to do anything.

Plus – Richard F. Scruggs, one of the country’s most successful litigators, whose house was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, is using his litigating skills against those we probably all don’t admire – the insurance industry:

Mr. Scruggs, 60, slim, often folksy and smooth as molasses in court, is using techniques that he honed in his earlier legal fights. He is arguing now, as he did before to such good effect, that he is fighting for the little guy who cannot stand up alone to big anonymous companies.

“These are not just legal wars,” Mr. Scruggs said in a recent interview. “They are public relations and political wars.”

The insurance companies counter that Mr. Scruggs has portrayed them unfairly and misleadingly.

“Mr. Scruggs has taken a tiny portion of the claims associated with Katrina and tried to paint the entire insurance industry with a brush of malfeasance,” said Robert P. Hartwig, president and chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute. “And that is an entirely incorrect characterization.”

Joseph Annotti, a spokesman for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, whose members provide 40 percent of the home insurance in Mississippi and the rest of the country, calls Mr. Scruggs an opportunist. “People are looking for someone to blame and someone to pay,” Mr. Annotti said. “He’s playing on that anger and people’s raw emotions. On our part, we underwrite policies that go through strict regulatory approval. Every word is approved by the state regulator.”

The insurance dispute centers on two main kinds of damage in a hurricane: wind and flooding. People along the Mississippi coast say they thought their policies covered any type of hurricane damage. The insurers, with the backing of the courts, have insisted that flooding is not included.

But in some cases insurers have also refused to pay when a house was wrecked by both wind and flooding — and there, a federal judge has ruled, they were wrong. Flood insurance is sold by the federal government. But fewer than 20 percent of the coastal residents in Mississippi bought it. [….]

Mr. Scruggs conceded he has used “every trick in the book” to gain advantage over the insurers.

“This is very personal,” he said. “This is about my family, my friends, the people I grew up with. I wake up at 3:30 every morning thinking of ways to get at this thing.”

In what some of his critics sniff at as unlawyerly decorum, he missed no opportunity to bash the insurers in newspaper and television interviews and press releases. He embraced two whistle-blowers who walked away from their jobs as claims adjusters, taking with them thousands of State Farm documents. Then he turned over the information to the attorney general of Mississippi, who began a criminal investigation.

In his talks with State Farm, Mr. Scruggs regularly dropped the names of two of his clients — his brother-in-law, Senator Trent Lott, and his friend, Representative Gene Taylor, who both lost houses to Katrina and had their claims rejected by State Farm. [….]

Scruggs conceded that his career hasn’t been based on altruism, but he is more Public Interest Minded after the horrific stuff to him and his neighbors, and is now working on getting more changes from the insurance industry. Like him or not, things do happen when you piss off the people with power.

An interesting look at Senator Barack Obama’s Hawaiian upbringing.

William Grimes’ reviewing annotated books – you know, those big, fancy, schmancy items with footnotes to explain, say, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Cool. I was (and remain) one of those suckers who’d read the footnotes, if only to better understand what on earth was I reading. Plus, Grimes is turning out to be a great writer/book critic. I guess it’s much different (even more relaxing?) than it was back when he was a food critic?

Time Magazine: the new layout is introduced in this weekend’s issue. First of all, I still don’t quite like this whole “get Time on Fridays!” thing. I preferred it when I got it earlier in the week. Secondly, the new layout… well, it’ll take some getting used to. Calling your Letters to the Editor section the “Inbox” in honor of our e-mailing world… well, sorry, that’s just tacky. Time.com is now increasingly cooler (all those blogs… but Andrew Sullivan’s now joined another magazine, so, oh well), but the idea of making your print magazine and your website conform… well, like I said, I don’t quite like the new layout yet.

On TV: watched NBC’s “Raines” on Friday night, the Jeff Goldblum vehicle. Not a bad show – seems entertaining. But, really – why must everyone go with the House idea? Have Quirky Personality and Watch Him in His Element. Maybe he even dislikes people, like House. So, CBS’ “Shark” has James Woods as Quirky Prosecutor and now there’s Jeff Goldblum as Quirky Cop. At least you got to hand it to Goldblum’s Detective Raines for being a sensitive and imaginative sort.

Get your NCAA brackets ready… let’s see what will happen… (ok, pointless confession: I didn’t pick UPenn, but I am rooting for them. Really. Can you imagine what kind of upset it’d be if the Ivy League at least get to the second round?).

Associated Press has an article on how the legal academia is appreciating the Anna Nicole Smith saga – about which we of the legal world already know. Personally, I think the mainstream media should put a hiatus on the whole Smith thing and let the lawyers figure this out. It’s all up to them to haggle and feast on, not for the rest of the world to really care – unless the rest of the world really does have something invested in how Anna Nicole Smith’s property is going to be divvied up, if at all.

The science behind humor:

When Robert R. Provine tried applying his training in neuroscience to laughter 20 years ago, he naïvely began by dragging people into his laboratory at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, to watch episodes of “Saturday Night Live” and a George Carlin routine. They didn’t laugh much. It was what a stand-up comic would call a bad room.

So he went out into natural habitats — city sidewalks, suburban malls — and carefully observed thousands of “laugh episodes.” He found that 80 percent to 90 percent of them came after straight lines like “I know” or “I’ll see you guys later.” The witticisms that induced laughter rarely rose above the level of “You smell like you had a good workout.”

“Most prelaugh dialogue,” Professor Provine concluded in “Laughter,” his 2000 book, “is like that of an interminable television situation comedy scripted by an extremely ungifted writer.” [….]

“Laughter is an honest social signal because it’s hard to fake,” Professor Provine says. “We’re dealing with something powerful, ancient and crude. It’s a kind of behavioral fossil showing the roots that all human beings, maybe all mammals, have in common.”

The human ha-ha evolved from the rhythmic sound — pant-pant — made by primates like chimpanzees when they tickle and chase one other while playing. Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Washington State University, discovered that rats emit an ultrasonic chirp (inaudible to humans without special equipment) when they’re tickled, and they like the sensation so much they keep coming back for more tickling.

He and Professor Provine figure that the first primate joke — that is, the first action to produce a laugh without physical contact — was the feigned tickle, the same kind of coo-chi-coo move parents make when they thrust their wiggling fingers at a baby. Professor Panksepp thinks the brain has ancient wiring to produce laughter so that young animals learn to play with one another. The laughter stimulates euphoria circuits in the brain and also reassures the other animals that they’re playing, not fighting.

“Primal laughter evolved as a signaling device to highlight readiness for friendly interaction,” Professor Panksepp says. “Sophisticated social animals such as mammals need an emotionally positive mechanism to help create social brains and to weave organisms effectively into the social fabric.” [….]

Oh-kay – lots of Big Words to figure out Why We Laugh. Could it be that it’s just good for us? Well, ok, maybe I’m being too simplistic, but it’s good to know that there may be an evolutionary explanation for humor.

A profile on an Asian-Australian mathematician (umm, Asian-Australian mathematician who lives in America?) – well, at least the accompanying math problems were interesting. Actually, no – what I thought was interesting was the paragraph where Prof. Tao admits that although he was a math prodigy, he was still not a big writer – pretty much the same grade level as others his age on that particular area. I guess you can’t be a genius at everything? Ah, well.

Umm, yeah – is anyone that eager about losing an hour three weeks earlier than it has been? Slate’s Explainer explains why daylight saving’s supposedly saves anything. Personally, I thought the article was interesting for how history has treated the concept – can you imagine that during World War Two, there was a year-long hour ahead? If time is so arbitrary (after all, when they changed to the Gregorian calendar, they gained a whole week), how do we really know it’s X o’clock? Hell, we’re living in the Anno Domini era only because of a certain cultural dominance – the cultural-neutral way of saying “Common Era” just sounds nice, that’s all.

I’ll concede that we might as well have the extra hour now, since it’s getting brighter longer each day (kind of weird to leave the office at the end of the day and see light in the sky). But, we won’t fall back the hour until November? Now that’s pointless – by then, it’ll be dark by 4pm even without falling back, so why not just stay falling back in October? Oh, well, no one says that Congress has sense, not when the lobbyists are behind this anyway.

A look at the Chinese Jew’s bat mitzvah . Hmm. Interesting.

Hmm. Is there something wrong that the U.S. Supreme Court clerk get signing bonuses wind up earning more money by joining Big Firm after their time with the Court is done? I don’t know, but if the clerks just sign and go for the money and then, once their two years with the Big Firm is done, go for academia or public service/public interest anyway, well, it just reflects the insanity of the Big Firms’ mentality. They’re throwing money and hope they still get something out of it. But, I just feel funny that all that money goes toward lawyers in the private sector and meanwhile public schools need help and the world generally sucks. There’s just something that doesn’t add up to me.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, it turns out Justice Kennedy has a thing for Shakespeare, and so he came to develop “The Trial of Hamlet” and will be presiding it in D.C. during the Shakespeare festival. Cool – a mock trial of whether Hamlet should be responsible for killing Polonious, when he wasn’t even in his right mind? Sounds like fun.

And, on a non-legal, non-anything note: The Springfields of USA are vying to be the location for the Simpsons movie premiere. Uh, okey-dokey – good luck!

Ah, mid-week already; Friday here we come!

Re: Oscars – was rooting for “Letters from Iwo Jima” – but, really, it was a latecomer to the Oscars race, and the sentiment was for Scorcese. Sentiment didn’t help Peter O’Toole, as the award did go to Forrest Whittaker (who, every time I see him, I remember the time when he was hosting the most recent incarnation of “The Twilight Zone” – he did a nice job as the host, even if the show was otherwise irritating as it re-hashed old plots that even the recent incarnation of “The Outer Limits” did a better job of doing; oh, and let me not go into how Whittaker was interesting as the sensitive psychic of the original “Species” – for a cheesy movie, it did have a pretty good cast – Ben Kingsley!).

Kudos also to Helen Mirren, Jennifer Hudson; “hmm” about Alan Arkin getting Best Supporting (I always thought it was kind of silly that they made him the bio-dad of Adam Arkin’s character on “Chicago Hope” – ok, they are real-life father and son, but it undermined how I liked the Adam Arkin character of season 1…). Well, Eddie Murphy doing “Norbit” must not have helped him toward getting Best Supporting; better luck another time, Murphy.

I liked the screenplay award segments, where they read portions from the script before announcing the winner. That really reminded us that there’s a writing process along with the acting and directing and technical stuff. The dancers who posed as silhouettes – that was SO unnecessary and made the show long and bloated. I’m probably one of the few who don’t mind award speeches – I mean, what’s an award show for if you don’t have speeches? But, the whole nonsense of “Artistry” in celebrating films – gets overdone. Even the Oscars attendees don’t look like they’re having much fun, so what’s the fun in it for me? I can see why Golden Globes are more entertaining for tv – plus, the attendees get to drink mucho alcohol to make themselves feel better, so they lose their inhibitions too. Actually, Clint Eastwood seemed way mellow, and Al Gore looked like he was having too much fun. Oh, well. Time for next round of movies.

Am a little behind on “Heroes” again – but did catch the last ten minutes… my goodness, what an episode. Not exactly the best-written show (the lines are a little trite), but there’s action and drama and not pointless – it’s an actual tv serial that seems to be heading to a point, for goodness sake! (not like how I got lost with Lost or how I lost patience with Prison Break).

Watched the “To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports” on Tuesday night. Daily News’ tv critic David Bianculli gave it a four out of four star rating. NY Times’ Alessandra Stanley notes:

Mr. Woodruff, who makes a point of saying he was privileged to receive the “best civilian and military care in the world,” wants viewers to know that veterans with traumatic brain injuries who rely solely on Veterans Affairs medical centers do not always receive the same quality of care.

“To Iraq and Back” is remarkably compelling, mostly because the documentary, while moving, is not just a heart-wrenching portrait of one man’s courageous struggle. Mr. Woodruff and his wife, Lee, have published a book about their experience, “In an Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing,” and will soon be telling their inspiring tale to Diane Sawyer, Oprah Winfrey and others.

On this ABC News special, Mr. Woodruff tells his story with candor and restraint, then turns the focus to the men and women who return badly wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan and do not heal as thoroughly.

I was initially wary of watching it – to be reminded of the mess this war has been and continues to be? (ok, trying not to get all political…) – and it’s all the more poignant – ABC News tacking on the “Reports” subtitle – pardon for being a cynic, but that subtitle reminded me of the Peter Jennings Reporting documentaries and how Woodruff himself was supposed to be the Jennings successor. Except, of course, things happen – Iraq happened.

Woodruff’s story – and the story of the veterans of our era – seeing it portrayed was quite powerful. Watching Woodruff interview the Secretary of the VA – and seeing the Secretary squirm ever so in trying to answer very real questions. Wondering if it’ll inspire effective action; our veterans deserve the best help this country can offer.

On a more cheerful front: In my recent on-line readings, I was reminded that, once upon a time, NY Times’ Frank Bruni was a political reporter before he became the new food critic. But, I’ve noticed that as time passes, he’s turning out to be quite talented as a food critic writer: his review of the steakhouse at the Penthouse Executive Club (Penthouse? umm, strip joint/fine food? What?) describes tantalizing food very well and has much humor. Like, laugh out loud humor. (I’ve noticed that Bruni really does that with the steak places – there was that one column that he did awhile back where he really got a kick out of the gorging at a bunch of steak places – I think it was Brooklyn’s Peter Lugar’s). Got to hand it to him – I wish I could be a writer like that with the touch of humor and goodwill.

Oh, and Mark Bittman does it again – the NY Times posted the video of him demonstrating how to bake quickbread – and he makes a funny point of how white bread, when wet, is only good for invalids (even that may be debatable) or for paste. Paste?! Ah, the Minimalist strikes again!

Celebrating the Lunar New Year in… Las Vegas? Hmm.

And, in Wednesday’s NY Times’ Food section: Mark Bittman, the Minimalist, does pudding. Check out the demonstration video that’s posted – he raises the good point that instant pudding is — well, ok, chemical-filled. But, my childhood was all about that artificial coloring! 😉 As Bittman notes at the end of the video, who wouldn’t miss the Yellow No. 5 (or whatever the number is; well, okay, Bittman meant it sarcastically). His vanilla pudding at the end there though – ooh, looks so good!

Thanks to the three-day weekend, I caught up on “Ugly Betty.” Good stuff – Daniel’s trying to get a handle on having a brother-who’s-now-a-sister (umm, yeah; got to give Rebecca Romijn credit for trying the role – but her character really is that naive for not expecting how difficult the gender transition would be); Daniel retains Grace “the Chin” Chin to be his dad’s defense lawyer (played by Lucy Liu – playing yet another lawyer? Well, at least this one is slightly that much more believable than her “Ally McBeal” incarnation – her Ling Woo character irritating me); and Betty’s trying to figure out her feelings for accountant Henry – only to realize that it might be too late.

At the very least: yay for the portrayal of fictitious Asian-American lawyers on tv.