Author: ssw15

AP report that Justice Scalia made a hand gesture.  Just not the hand gesture some news reporters thought it was.  A bit of wit, perhaps.

Caught the second half of “Everwood” last night – the return of “Everwood” felt as if the show never left.  Speaking as someone who pretty much missed most of the season’s first half, it felt nice to be back in the world of Everwood – wherein Amy and Ephraim are re-thinking their relationship (again) because apparently sex actually can cause problems and changes a relationship that was never entirely stable to begin with (no, really, Amy and Ephram – that didn’t occur to either of you when this tv season began?); wherein Ephram doesn’t hate his dad (for now anyway) and may be back at playing the piano; wherein it appears to be Ephram’s sister Delia, who gets her pre-adolescent turn to hate their dad (Dr. Andy Brown just can’t get a break with his resentful kids); and wherein the other town doctor, Dr. Harold Abbott, is debating whether he really wants to adopt another child since the kids, Amy and Bright, have moved on to college.  Amy starts to volunteer at the college’s planned parenthood/sex ed type thing, and gets into a tense discussion with her brother’s girlfriend about sex v. abstinence.  Amy doesn’t realize that her dad, the leading conservative of Everwood (to balance the much-too-liberal Dr. Andy), had performed abortions in the past (and may still do), harkening back to a well-done Everwood episode way back in season 1.  Um hmm. Ain’t that a kick in the head?
The WB may be leaving the air, but the new CW better renew “Everwood.”  And, “Gilmore Girls” (at least let it linger to a believable end, so give it another year).  Probably save “Smallville” (which really hit quite a stride once it finally took on the Superman mythos) and “Supernatural” (of which I still can’t quite watch a full episode, simply because I resent that it’s the show that replaced “Jack and Bobby,” which was a show that really deserved another shot, even if the ratings numbers weren’t successful).  And take UPN’s “Veronica Mars” and “Everybody Hates Chris.”  CW would be quite a little network.  Stand up for quality, please!

CBS also re-ran the cute “How I Met Your Mother” episode, wherein protagonist Ted meets Victoria at a wedding, but almost misses out on keeping her around in his life, because the two foolishly made a pact to just enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime thing.  For a first year sitcom, it’s not a perfect sitcom, but it has a heart and angst that I like.

Thursday night was Alma Mater Law School’s Public Interest Auction, the fun social event of the year of the Alma Mater school stuff. Junk food galore, and amusing auction items. And, of course, the people who dare to bid, sticking their paddles high up until they reach a magic number (“Sold, to the gentleman in the back…” – as if he really intended to buy the helicopter ride or the dinner with the dean for that much amount of money)…

Friday/Saturday – I attended a rather interesting symposium on constitutional law at the Law School by Lincoln Center. Affordable CLE credits. Way much stuff flying over my head, but I was able to follow enough to enjoy it. It felt a lot like an anthropological expedition, wherein I observe the interactions of constitutional law professors. The profs were clearly in their element, knowing each other a very long time, and commenting on each other’s work and worrying (or critiquing) the course of progressive/liberal/left politics / interpretation of law. And, they all kept referring to each other by their first names – “Randy” “Sandy” “Jim” and Moe and Curly and so on (“But, I disagree with Rick about his view on [insert some big terms of constitutional law here]” ; “Oh, and thanks, Jim, for setting up the program…” and oh, I love how these events have the best cookies and tons of coffee and tea – do universities always have that in their culture of event arranging?). And, the profs – they clearly love their work and you can feel it and almost envy it (well, I do, anyway). Rather amusing, I must say, once I caught on with the discussion.

One ponders: what happens with the Constitution in the post 9/11 world? J. Scalia – the man who inspires a few snickers; and that John Yoo, the attorney behind the White House’s torture memos – another source inspiring snickers. But, I got rather tired, due to the long week I’ve been having.

And, I don’t doubt that what the profs discussed and researched is important stuff, but I wonder – are professors sometimes too trapped in their ivory tower? If you only talked about the important stuff amongst yourselves (I’m sure they don’t, but…) — well, I just felt that the public ought to be in the know, but then again, the public probably doesn’t care about the gritty details of constitutional law (even though some members of the public go into their whole red v. blue state nonsense without really understanding why there’s a red v. blue nonsense; the law profs sadly do know) and our society’s not going to reach a resolution on problems and controversies anytime soon with an apathetic public.

But, I may be a geek for saying this, I find this stuff very interesting. I didn’t really like my con law prof back in law school, but the whole Supreme Court stuff and how federal government works (or doesn’t work) have always intruigued me.  Anyway, the whole symposium gave a lot of food for thought.
Afterward, I visited the NY Public Library’s Performing Arts branch – interesting exhibits on vaudeville and Irving Berlin and music in Harlem.

Later, I went to Borders. I avoided buying stuff, but flipped through the latest Dr. Alex Delaware mystery book. I’m so behind the series, having more or less dropped it ever since the author, Jonathan Kellerman, put Dr. Delaware through yet another tribulation in the Delaware love life (something about blowing the doc’s house up and the live-in girlfriend/wife getting really sick and tired of the dangerous adventures getting way out of hand – I sympathized). It looked as if Delaware’s back in his element of yet more screwed up love (his own and that of others – the murder victims and villains) and weird cases.

Seriously, though, I have been rather skeptical of Delaware’s break with the love of his life (it didn’t help that there were times that both Delaware and Robin had their less-than-rounded-out character moments – all these years, and Delaware’s still a bit on the shallow side – the first book was when he seemed most like a person; his humanity’s central warmth has been rather missing since then – but, after you get beaten up by the bad guys enough times, can you blame him?; moreover, Milo, the gay LAPD cop/Alex’s best friend, is more of a person than Alex half the time). From what I can tell, half the fandom hated Robin for being whiney and the other half liked her, even if she got a tad annoying (ok, I’m in that camp – at least Robin made some sense to me – what woman wants her man in stupid danger, as Alex has been repeatedly? Heck, Milo’s domestic partner (a medical doctor, lucky Milo) probably hates it that Milo gets in danger – but he’s a cop, not a psychologist who digs into trouble, like Alex). And, then again, the plots got rather crazy, even for a psychological thriller series (again, when even Delaware’s little pet fish and the poor dog get endangered, you just wonder if it’s a bit much).

Anyway, I flipped through the pages of “Rage” and felt indifferent. If you want to read a good psychological thriller/mystery series by Kellerman, I’d say it’s best to read the first bunch of Delaware books; the later ones feel iffy to me. So, it may be still awhile yet before I pick up a Delaware book for proper reading.  I’m behind on other reading as it is.

UCLA and LSU as half of the Final Four. Who picked them? And, boy was that UCLA v. Memphis game so low scoring. Well, I still have UConn and Villanova…

The Empire State Building was yellow the night of 3/20/06, in honor of the first day of Spring. Funny how the temperature sure didn’t feel like spring.

A law-related article (and perhaps in time for Women’s History Month?): the NY Times looks into why so few women are high up in the big law firms. I thought the most interesting line in the article was the view that there’s more than discrimination going on, but perhaps a problem of biases – cultural change is something harder to combat, and so are the issues of retention in the legal profession.

The passing of a NYC institution: Eyewitness News’ Bill Beutel. The NY Times had a fascinating obituary, noting among other things:

After graduating from Dartmouth, Mr. Beutel went to the University of Michigan Law School but left after a year to pursue journalism. He got a radio job in Cleveland and then came to CBS radio in New York.

In 1962, he joined ABC as a reporter for the national news broadcast and as an anchor on the local New York news program “The Big News.” Up to then his name had been pronounced “BOY-tel,” but at the beginning of his first live broadcast on WABC-TV, the narrator pronounced it, “Byoo-TEL.” The new pronunciation stuck.

Channel 7 also had nice tributes (well, Bill Beutel was their leader). I just think it’s just sad that Beutel, who was an ABC London bureau chief around the time of Peter Jennings’ own rise on ABC, is now also gone. ABC losing its national lead, as well as its local lead (ok, Beutel retired or scaled back some time ago, but still, for a long time, he was a fixture at 6pm, to lead to Peter Jennings).

Even more sad – it’s only with the passing of a Channel 7 veteran that brings out the other former Channel 7 guys back on the air – Doug Johnson and John Johnson to speak about their colleague. Channel 4, although the rival network, had a nice tribute too. Kind of weird to realize, but Channel 4’s Chuck Scarborough really has picked up the baton here – the longtime guy who still carries this voice of authority (unlike, say, Ernie Anastos and his I-get-to-work-on-every-channel thing). Also weird – seeing longtime Channel 7 reporters go to different channels gives you this feeling of them bringing their Channel 7-ness with them wherever they go: Channel 4 had David Ushery talk about Bill Beutel; Channel 2 had Roz Abrams talk about having been a few offices away from Beutel for years.

You could feel Channel 7’s loss; you could get the sense of respect from Channel 4 (when even Chuck had nice things to say) – but it feels weird to not get a more substantial take from CBS? Well, they haven’t had a lead anchor of the Chuck Scarborough or Bill Beutel stature in awhile – not that kind of longevity or ability. Channel 5 had John Roland, but even he moved on. A passing of an era, indeed.

The day of vernal equinox is coming, yet it still feels darn cold. And, my own cold lingers. Blech.

The NCAA brackets are what they are. I picked too many Big East teams, and lo and behold, a bunch of Big East teams fell on Day 1 (I should’ve known better than to have picked Seton Hall and Syracuse, but was surprised about Marquette, but probably should’ve seen that Alabama was probably prime to be a good upset there). I also made the mistake of picking Indiana as one of my Final Four (more because I was hoping it’d be my upset pick to go all the way). The rest of my Final Four – Duke, UConn, and Villanova – are still in – so here’s hoping that my brackets won’t get entirely ripped up yet.

An article on the Baby Universe – curious stuff scientists are finding out about what happened just after Big Bang. Slate’s William Saletan links to other articles about the research – and poses that the answer to all our questions about the beginning of the universe lies in… religion. Can’t say that I disagree with him.

And, is there such a thing as a lawyer’s witness coaching going too far as to become witness tampering? Apparently, yes, says Slate Explainer.

The coral reefs are in trouble, no thanks to the oceans’ rise in temperature. They turn pale and pasty. Makes me wonder what this may mean. It’s like the canaries who die first in the mines – this can’t possibly be good.

TV viewing:

Well, there’s American Idol. Simon’s still a mean man, but when he likes the contestant, he gets downright annoying. I mean, really: “Yes, that was really good. You will win this competition…” Dripping with… sincerity? Yikes.

I watched most of tonight’s NCIS episode. Hmm. The one big weakness in their plots is that they have to devise any possible way to bring NCIS into a situation. High school hostage taking situation – sort of a Columbine thing where the confused teen is strapped to a bomb to wipe out his homeroom – wouldn’t involve NCIS in real life, since NCIS gets involved in military-related incidents (“N” stands for Navy, duh). But, Special Agent Gibbs and the gang got involved because the high school is… located in the local Marines base and harms the lives of military brats. Ok. Sure.

Obviously, you just have to suspend your belief in reality, just a bit, to see how NCIS gets involved, but otherwise, the suspense was well done and the characters – well, I like anything where there’s respect for the characters and who they are and what they care about. NCIS isn’t a perfect tv series, but it’s okay tv. (unlike, say, JAG, where their sense of smugness got a bit grating for me).

NCAA March Madness brackets – hmm. I’m torn between choosing what will likely happen versus what I’d like to happen (a few weird upsets). Maybe I’ll make up multiple brackets. Hmm.

A warm March weekend in NYC.
Scientific news in this post:

Water found on a Saturn moon – so, what does that mean? It means, arguably, we could find a new form of life that exist in what we Terrans would call extreme conditions. Ok, more likely than not, it’d be weird microscopic life, or if more evolved, sort-of like the worms living off the sulfuric gases of Earth’s oceanic volcanos. But, it’d be a life form. And, ok, so I must have watched too much “X-Files” to think this, but we really ought to be careful with what we find (in “X-Files,” Mulder and Scully always ended up scrambling to find solutions to the weird extraterrestrial microscopic life infecting something or someone…)

The latest Mars orbiter – looks like it’s safely orbiting. The impending new pictures will be amazing, I’ve no doubt.

The whole Blackberry litigation settlement – wherein the makers of Blackberry paid off this plaintiff who accused them of patent infringement, when he never even made a product – well, the whole thing makes me wonder if patent law needs some reform. But, I’m no IP person (patents was the course I didn’t take; liked trademarks, but got bored with copyright).

A friend of mine e-mailed me this link. A sarcastic Precious Moments. Quite funny.

Oh, and last but not least – it’s about to be March Madness – NCAA Tournament. It’s Bracket Time!

As of this writing, I have not yet read reactions; in fact, as it is post-midnight, wee hours of the Monday morn, I’m about to go to bed or should have been in bed awhile ago, but for various things. My own reaction: well, I want to think that Jon Stewart did an ok job. His opening monologue (which I caught mostly) was funny. His little sound editing tidbit was funny. I have a feeling that critics will put him in the David Letterman category in the history of Oscars – but I don’t think it’s his fault. The Oscars folks put him in a bind, with not-that-great writing and this terrible pacing they had. (then again, I never thought David Letterman was that bad and thought people overly criticized him).

Much of the evening was — meh. The music from the pit below the stage kept going from the very start of the winners’ speeches, forcing people to speak quickly or else cut them off without popping up out of nowhere. Yet, the winners managed to say a lot without saying very much. The stage design was bizarre and not tv friendly by any appearances. (why does the “78” for 78th Annual Awards have to be so damn huge?). And, the breakneck speed to which they got through the awards show – man, they ended at 11:30pm EST – way earlier than they have in YEARS. The filler still felt like filler, but there was somehow a feeling of boredom and “could you just get to the point” even as they headed to a point.
Well, maybe it was award ceremony fatigue – this whole ambiance that everybody at the Oscars just wanted to get this over with, since they’ve been to the Golden Globes and SAG and so on, so the winners (who they would be was incredibly predictable) already knew what they wanted to say, since they rehearsed their speeches in the previous awards shows.

George Clooney was a good winner, I thought, for Best Supporting Actor. He kindly acknowledged his fellow nominees for their good work; acknowledged the Academy’s lead in doing progressive work (ex., awarding Hattie McDaniel of Gone With the Wind with an Oscar during the pre-civil rights era); and teased that he probably wasn’t getting the Oscar for Best Director now that he won his night’s award. He even mugged for the camera and went along with Jon Stewart’s teasing him. Charming Mr. Clooney. Poor Paul Giamatti though – he should have won for Sideways and again loses out for Cinderella Man. (I saw Sideways and definitely felt he did great there).
And, they forgot to honor Don KNotts among the passing of the Hollywood community. Or maybe they figured the Emmys will cover him, thinking that he was more of a tv guy. But, he did do a few movies in his day!

I had that feeling that the Oscar wouldn’t go with Brokeback Mountain – Crash seemed to be having momentum from those awards shows (plus, it’s a movie about Los Angeles – the Academy people must be suckers for movies about/and taking place in their own neighborhood). (but, I’ve seen neither movie, so who am I to say?). But, really, kudos to Ang Lee for winning Best Director and Donna Osana and Larry McMurtry for winning Best Adapted Screenplay.

The group singing “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” seemed like the group most enthusiastic for being at the Oscars and for winning an Oscar (again, that feeling of meh couldn’t be avoided). I suppose it was amusing that their title was what it was; but then even the presenter and Queen Latifah noted that it isn’t that shocking (I mean, if the song for Shaft can win an Oscar for best song, reflecting its movie, why not this song for “Hustle and Flow”?) – amusing jokes of double entendre. Dolly Parton’s song for “Transamerica” wasn’t so bad, and seemed pretty relevant to the movie. So, no one can feel that upset really. However, there was a benefit to the five-second air delay – they managed to bleep out the curse words of the winners – at least keep joy clean for Middle America. But, the natural joy – it flowed well.

And kudos to the winners for Wallace and Gromit. I really have to see that movie!

I almost missed the lengthiness of Oscars shows of yore; at least they were long so that people bonded and celebrated movies. Here, it’s just… boring. The writing of the words which were meant to celebrate movies were trite and wordy, as if the writers wanted to give the presenters substantive stuff about movies and movie making but ended up getting them all tongue-twisted and more uncomfortable than ever. Please. Jon Stewart’s skit about the sound editors lobbying for Academy votes to win Best Sound was funny and kind of made you wonder more about sound editing than the usual gobbledy-gook the award presenters had to read from the teleprompter. Honestly, the Tony Awards were more fun with the wit and veneration of the art form. (I’m not suggesting that Hugh Jackman’s a great host; I’m just saying that there was a feeling of respect the art).
When morning comes, I’ll see what the professional commentators will say; I may post again later.

“Charmed” is the first casualty of WB’s conversion into the new CW. Too bad – it’s a decent show. The writing could have always been improved (it never made all tht much sense to me), but it had a long enough run (WB was debating whether to keep it for quite awhile).

A nice article on Bob Schieffer, the CBS News anchorman (the so-called transitional guy until CBS find a permanent flashy anchor). I think he has a deft touch, and maintains a certain network identity. While NBC News is identified by Brian Williams, the face of its nightly news, CBS didn’t go wrong with Bob Schieffer. ABC though – well, it’s a tough transition, let’s just say.

A story of Asians on TV – the relationship development of Jin and Sun of ABC’s “Lost”. I’m not a viewer of “Lost,” but follow along with the story lines (more or less), so this was a nice tidbit (well, I confess, I did watch pieces of the episode referred therein, and I think that both actors playing the characters Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim are quite talented).

TV is not bad for you after all. Ooh…

And, tonight – the Oscars.  Hmm.

Arriverderci, Turino; Bonjour, Vancouver. Ok, that was an interesting (if not weird as usual) closing ceremony. Clown noses, a carnivale thing; and Vancouver doing a little ice fishing demonstration to kick off their 2010 Olympics. Umm, okay. Their mayor, Sam Sullivan, taking the flag – that was inspiring – a paraplegic since age 19, he’s working on getting the goods for his city. Seems to me that NBC’s just hoping for better ratings with Vancouver’s being in the same continent and therefore better opportunity for actual live coverage.

NY Rangers Jaromir Jagr is back from Turin and the Olympics break, and he’s past the whole Olympics thing – he’s pretty certain he won’t be playing for the Czech national team anytime soon and now, he’s aiming for the Stanley Cup. Hmm.
Ok, so I was just reading this in passing, but thought that the headline was kind of odd: “Court nominee lightly grilled, not roasted” – wherein Reuters reports on how the Canadians were taking some kind of step towards American-style Supreme Court nominating:

Canada took a small step on Monday toward the U.S.-style practice of vetting nominees to the Supreme Court but the result was more of a love-in than a rigorous interrogation.

As part of a desire by the new Conservative government to make the process of appointing top justices more open, a parliamentary committee was allowed, for the first time ever, to question nominee Marshall Rothstein.

Legislators were warned they could not ask about his stance on controversial topics for fear this would compromise him once he made the top bench.

The opposition Liberals, who had expressed dismay about the idea of questioning judges, gushed with praise.

“I would characterize you as a brilliant jurist, as having a remarkable intelligence, a prolific writer and a man of the highest integrity,” said Irwin Cotler, formerly the Liberal justice minister.

The committee had no power to vote on the candidacy of Rothstein, 65, a veteran of the Federal Court of Appeal. The final decision will be taken by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Gosh, don’t the Canadians know any better than to imitate the Americans at their worst? Or, maybe Members of Parliament really are just as screwed up as their counterparts in the American legislature. Eh.

The passing of sci-fi writer Octavia Butler. I noted this, even though I’ve never gotten around to reading her work yet (I’m really so not a big sci-fi geek) , she is notable for being an African-American female writer in what has been a primarily white male domain.

Some recent reading I did:

A strange and lyrical book, “Spies” by German writer Marcel Beyer (translated by Breon Mitchell). The nameless narrator is not a very reliable narrator, as he pieces to the reader the mysteries of his family’s past and secrets. Grandpa was a German Air Force pilot during the Spanish Civil War (and may or may not have committed atrocities) and fought during World War II; Grandma died, but the memory of her haunts Grandpa, their children, and later the grandchildren who never knew her; Grandpa’s second wife is a lunatic (or is she?) who cut the kids off from their father and the grandchildren never meet their grandfather; or maybe Grandpa is complicit in the estrangment, because he likes his secrets, and later, so do the grandkids, who barely become functioning adults who stop speaking to each other – the three siblings and their cousin, the one who especially hasn’t given up on the idea of Grandma, a former soprano with “Italian” eyes.

Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path: The Journey from Frustration to Fulfillment, by mystery writer Nancy Pickard and writer/therapist Lynn Lott. A spiritual/therapeutical self-help book for writers, but more than that – I think it can help anyone get a perspective on things. I’m not even into self-help books, but I found this one to be a good read – and it was light enough to read in the subway and it was a bargain from Barnes and Noble.

This week, Newsweek has an interesting issue on India, in time for President Bush’s trip to India. But, more notably, it has interesting stuff in Indian-Americans. Writer Jhumpa Lahiri writes on what it means to be hypenated. And, young Indian-Americans are moving beyong medical careers. Well, I suppose Asian-Americans are making progress when we get to have a movie like “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” – still a movie I haven’t seen yet (I’m just not a big movie person, I guess).