Clipper Ship of Fools

In general, I just can't get onboard with the whole 'NBA' thing.  The product seems to be too clean, to well produced and too slick for me to enjoy. Plus, they play in quarters not halves and seem to be intent on trying to push this whole weird idea about basketball jerseys with sleeves that really needs to stop and go away.

Yet despite that, the NBA was starting to intrigue me a little of late.  Where once, you could seemingly count on the Lakers or Celtics or even the Bulls back in the day to dominate everything, the world seemed to turn upside down and Golden State was suddenly good.  Denver was good.  Tim Duncan, who seems to have been playing in the NBA since I was in high school was still doin' his thing with the Spurs in San Antonio.  King James and Company weren't immortal, as their loss to of all teams, Dallas proved a couple of years ago.   Brooklyn got a team again and yes, suddenly, apropos of nothing-  well, apart from a Chris Paul trade and the acquisition of Blake Griffin, the Clippers were relevant and even good again.

I'm not saying this made me want to sit down and convert into a diehard NBA fan, but it certainly made me pay more attention to it than I had been in years past.  (Which meant more than 'no attention whatsoever.')

Then Donald Sterling happened.

I'm not even that pissed (well, I'm pissed, obviously- but not that pissed) about what he said on the tape.  It seems like a pretty ham-fisted attempt by his girlfriend, mistress or whatever she is to set him up and make some cash from TMZ and what you hear on the tape is the sort of icky, non-overt, dancing around what he really wants to say, type of racism that makes you want to take a shower and not associate with people like that ever again.   Is it racist?  Oh my yes.  Is it disgusting?  You betcha.   But is it what I'm pissed about?  No.

What I'm pissed about and what everybody should be pissed about is that Sterling has been a racist asshat for decades now and the NBA has known this and not done a damn thing.  You think the tape was bad?  Wait until you read about his exploits as a super-duper-racist slumlord who actually did oppress poor minorities, just because he could!  As far back as 2006 (if not further) people have been saying 'hey, this guy is a racist asshat- and it's disgusting that he gets to own a team in this league.'  And you know what the NBA has done?  Nothing.

That's right.  Nothing.  They haven't had to do anything-  despite the fact that the a large portion of the NBA's business comes from minority communities like African-Americans  The Clippers were totally irrelevant.  They sucked.  They sucked a lot.  Sterling and his views could be swept under the rug and quietly ignored because they could.  It didn't matter.  No one apart from Billy Crystal gave a shit about the Clippers so who cared?  It's not like they were going to make the playoffs and maybe win the NBA Title anytime soon, right?

Ooops- and that, right there is what really pisses me off about all of this.  It's okay in the NBA to be a racist shitbag billionaire owner, as long as your team sucks out loud.  But if you can post pretty good odds of potentially winning it all and getting your hands on the trophy on national television?  Well, we can't be having that, now can we?

It's not clear what exactly the NBA can do to Sterling- supposedly there's a super-secret Article 35 that could be invoked to force him to sell the franchise (probably a notion worth considering) and I don't know much about franchising laws and how that works, but the notion occurs to me if the NBA extends someone a franchise, surely they can take that franchise away.

We'll see what new Commish Adam Silver can rustle up. Because right now, to me, the issue isn't some old rich racist asshat, it's "in this league, you can be as racist as you want provided your team sucks and nobody notices."  That's not something anyone should find acceptable.

The ball is in their court.

UPDATED:  Well, that was decisive.  And ESPN's Bomani Jones completely dominated this controversy in a ten minute segment that everyone should sit down and listen too.

'Gravity' --A Review

This has been on my 'must watch' list for awhile- Alfonso Cuaron is one of my favorite directors (see: Harry Potter 3 and Children of Men if you haven't already) and the setting, realism and effects looked amazing and frankly bone-chilling, given what I saw in the preview.   I'm happy to report that this film more than lives up to the hype.

The story of Astronaut Ryen Stone (Sandra Bullock) and her no good, horrible, very bad day, we begin with a team of astronauts who are wrapping up repairs on the Hubble Telescope in their shuttle, The Explorer.  Dapper and talkative fellow astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) is on his last shuttle mission and have a fine old time telling stories and jetting around on his cool new jet pack- he's coming close to breaking the record for the longest spacewalk but he won't quite make it.  Everything seems to be going fine until Houston radios that the Russians have shot down a satellite and it's started a chain reaction, taking out other satellites and the debris is heading their way.

Just like that, the movie jumps from 25 mph to 125 mph as the astronauts frantically scramble to get back to the shuttle and get out of the way, but it's too late:  the debris catches them, destroys the shuttle and the Hubble and sends Stone flying out into oblivion- at Kowalski's urging, she detaches from the Hubble- but is still flying out into nothing.

After some heart pounding panic (including a very cool, slow scene where Cuaron takes us inside Stone's helmet, so you can hear her breathing and the sound of her heart beating) Kowalski jets over to her, tethers back up to her and they had back to the shuttle- there are no survivors.  Next stop is the International Space Station, which was evacuated prior to the debris striking.  Along the way, we find out why Ryen is up in space:  her daughter died and she's sort of been running on auto-pilot ever since.

Using the last of the gas in the jet pack, they fling themselves at the ISS and Ryen manages to grab hold, but Kowalski can't- and although Ryen gets tangled up in the parachute that accidentally deployed on the second life boat, Kowalski is too heavy- he's dragging her away from the station- so he detaches himself and floats away and with her oxygen getting lower and lower, Ryen makes her to the ISS, gets inside, shimmies out of her suit and takes long, long breaths of air.

But, just when you think that she might be catching a break of some kind- we're off and running again, this time due to a fire in the ISS.  She hops in the Soyuz and is already to jet free of the ISS when she realizes that she's stuck in the damn parachute and has to go back outside to cut herself loose- when guess what? The debris has come back around and is smacking into the ISS yet again.  Ryen manages to get back in the capsule, but the fuel is gone.  She about gives up, but a nicely timed hallucination of Kowalski stops by and kicks Ryen into gear.  She starts to Soyuz up and heads for the Chinese Station Tiangong, where she finds an escape capsule slips inside and points herself toward Earth and hopes for the best, even as the station begins to re-enter the atmosphere and break apart around her.

SPOILER ALERT, she makes it down okay, but, because every possibly danger has to happen to this poor woman, she almost drowns in her capsule and then her space suit- but she makes it out, heaves herself onto dry land and, slowly, uncertainly stands up and checks out the green landscape around before wandering off- I'm hoping to find a payphone or something to let NASA know she's alive.

Overall: a beautiful, taut and tense movie, Gravity leaves the viewer with a palpable sense of the real dangers that exist all the time in space every single day- and while they did a fantastic job on that- it was pulse-pounding enough on my regular sized television screen, it must have been damn near terrifying on the big or even an IMAX screen- it's also the beautiful story of one woman's journey back to life.  The metaphorical aspect of the movie might seem a little heavy handed at times (space capsule as womb, slowly dragging herself to shore, like the primordial creatures coming on land for the first time) but overall, it worked really well.  **** out of ****

This Week In Vexillology #78

Just in time for the holiday- or I guess the post-holiday weekend, we're heading back from the Pacific to check out the flag of Merry Old England for St. George's Day!

But, before we get to the flag- let's dig in and find out once and for all:  who was St. George and did he really slay that dragon? Well, if you want the full life story, go and read his Wikipedia page.  To me, the more interesting thing is the dragon- and the Reader's Digest Version of that story goes like this:

There was a dragon (or possibly a crocodile) that made it's nest in the spring that provided water for the city of Silene (which, per Wikipedia could either be Cyrene in Modern Libya or Lydda in the Holy Land/Palestine, which St. George claimed as his hometown- so, when the citizens wanted water, they had to roust the beastie out of it's nest by offering a sheep or if they were fresh out of sheep a nice, juicy maiden instead.  They drew lots for the maidens and one day, lo and behold, the princess' number came up.  Dear Old Dad, The King begs for his life, but the citizens say no dice and off she goes- and guess who happens to be in the neighborhood?  St. George himself- who slays the dragon and rescues the Princess.  Everyone back in town is so happy they convert to Christianity to celebrate!

(Bonus:  St. George's lance that did the deed was named Ascalon which was named after the city of Ashkelon in the Levant- a city that's still there, by the way.)

Which brings us back to the crazy-ass question:  how did some Lebanese guy wind up being the Patron Saint of England- and how did his cross end up as England's flag? Well it seems to have stemmed from the Crusades- way way way back in the day.  In 1188 Henry II of England and Philip II went to go on a Crusade and Henry agreed to use the white cross and Phillip the red one, but England and France seems to have switched it up around the time of Richard The Lionheart, that apparently that can't be substantiated.

Interestingly enough the flag has no official status within the United Kingdom- but it's been in increasing use since the 1990s- especially at sporting events.

So, there you have it- the flag of England.  Until next time, keep your flags flying, FREAK or otherwise!

Gabriel García Márquez, 1927-2014

I read books from a very early age.   Gabriel Garcia Marquez made me want to write them.  I couldn't tell you when I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude.  It was sometime late in high school or early in college, I think- even though I remember seeing Tom Hanks' character read it in Turner and Hooch as a kid and I remember picking up the copy that The Cigar Parentals had tucked away on the bottom shelf of one of our bookcases downstairs and wondering what it was actually about.

But when I heard the story about Marquez being taken by his grandfather up the mountain near his native Aracataca, Colombia to search for ice- I don't know why, but that made me stop wondering what the book was about and actually pick it up and read it.   And that, really and truly, changed my life.

I plunged through One Hundred Years of Solitude, gobbled up Love In The Time of Cholera and didn't stop there.  Esquival, Allende, Amado, Vargas Llosa- all fell into my lap and I loved every minute of them. But the joy of discovering an entirely new genre (magic realism) was doubled as it provided a ton of cultural and historical education about Latin America- which I realized and realize to this day that I know very little about.  (Which is strange, when you think about it- I'm sure students in say, England learn about the history of countries like France- but I know I never really got the 4-1-1 on Canada or Mexico and points south.)

Then I picked up The Autumn of The Patriarch.

If One Hundred Years of Solitude opened up the doorways to a whole genre of writing and a whole region of the world that I had known comparatively little about, The Autumn of The Patriarch showed me the possibilities of what you can do with writing itself.  The story of a dying fascist dictator in the Caribbean, it unfolds in one, long, dreamlike sentence, a stream of consciousness that eventually culminate with these closing lines:

"...flying through the dark sound of the last frozen leaves of his autumn toward the homeland of shadows of the truth of oblivion, clinging to his fear of the rotting cloth of death's hooded cassock and alien to the clamor of the frantic crowds who took to the streets singing hymns of joy at the jubilant news of his death and alien forevermore to the music of liberation and the rockets of jubilations and the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end."

Seriously.  Read that.   Then read it again.  And again and just let the poetry, the ebb and flow of the language wash over you.  Maybe it's because Marquez's first language wasn't English and he just had really great translations for all his books or maybe he was just a genius amazing writer- but the fact that someone could do this is inspiring.

It's taken me the better part of a week to write this- for some reason, it just didn't want to gel and how do you put into words exactly what impact Marquez had on my reading and my writing? All I know is that last week, the world lost a genius and we're poorer for it.

What I'm Reading #5

The cover of this book has been around in poster form for awhile now and lead to a mild debate between myself and The Quiet Man- I swear that this cover (posterized, of course) was hanging in the old Newslab in City High back in the day.  (I see on Facebook they've been up to some renovations and have upgraded to Macs- I'm sort of depressed about that.  I became somewhat attached to the shiteous PC I used for editing my junior/senior year.)  Anyway-  The Quiet Man thought it was another poster- and I will admit that he probably remembers it better than I do.  (And I'm willing to concede this might have been in an English classroom somewhere in high school as well- or it probably showed up as a vague pop culture reference in an episode of Gilmore Girls and got stuck in my brain somehow.)

But anyway!

I have plunged into the depths of A Confederacy of Dunces and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure it's living up to it's hype just yet.  The Pulitzer Price winning classic by John Kennedy Toole is packed with praise from the usual sources, promising that this will be the 'funniest book ever written' and hailing it as an 'American comic masterpiece.'  One hundred and eighteen pages into this book though and I'm not sure I'm convinced yet.   Don't get me wrong:  Ignatius J. Reilly is one of the more unique characters I've stumbled across in literature and it's obvious that the setting, New Orleans is as integral to the narrative as the cast of unique and memorable characters.

But comic masterpiece?  I've stumbled across a few things that have drawn smiles and a chuckle or two, but belly laughs?  Laughing so hard that I need to go and pee?  Not so much- not yet anyway.  Which makes me wonder if this book won't live up to 'the comic masterpiece hype.'  Ignatius, as a character is interesting and funny at times, thanks to his cluelessness and general inability to handle modern life, thus far, but he's a difficult character.  And sort of a pain in the ass.

I'm going to have to dig in and put my shoulder to this book, I think- it's becoming more and more of a slog and I really want to see if it lives up to the hype.

The Practical Guide To Entertaining The Cigarillo #6

Devonian Fossil Gorge
It's like Jurassic Park, but without any live dinosaurs

Warmer weather means that finally, at long last, we can get outside with The Cigarillo and have some fun. Last summer's tour of Iowa City's bounty of playgrounds was fun, but what better place for a 2 year old to have fun and run wild- not to mention have some science and critters thrown at him than the Devonian Fossil Gorge out at the Res.

I've always loved the Fossil Gorge.  It reminds me a lot of a vacation we took to the Badlands in South Dakota when I was a kid- I had a blast climbing all over the rock formations there and the Devonian Fossil Gorge- while less vertical and considerably more horizontal offers much the same level of fun.  Rocks to run and climb over, the occasional fossil- water, the occasional frog and snake to find.  The Cigarillo, being 2 years old, loved it.  He especially loved the two guys steering their remote control cars over the rocks and, as always, the occasional encounter with a puppy was especially fascinating.  If you want to shake things up a little bit and do something different, it's worth the drive.

Willow Creek/Kiwanis Park
Two times the fun in the Hidden Oasis of the West Side...

When it got warmer, The Cigarillo continued to want to go to his go-to destination, The Playplace at The Coral Ridge Mall but what with the warmer temperatures, the last thing I wanted to do was be inside, so I started to get creative and we launched our park hunt!  I hadn't actually been to Willow Creek Park before, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that technically, there's two times the fun as Kiwanis Park is right on the south end of Willow Creek Park.

Playground-wise, Willow Creek was awesome.  It wasn't too high, height-wise for The Cigarillo, he loved the slide, he loved the swings and he loved the park.  We went for a walk over the creek and he loved the little waterfall under the bridge and we made our way down to Kiwanis Park  The playground there was fascinating, actually.  This is going to sound a little weird, but the playground was actually integrated into the landscape.  It resembles a rock garden with slides.

The Cigarillo, in short, had a blast- and I don't know whether it was just this particular day or the time of day but there was a ton of sunlight and it made everything seem so green, vivid and bright.  Seems like the perfect place to come for a picnic (something we might have to do one of these days!)  And, as an added bonus- the playground is on the flight path for planes taking off the airport and The Cigarillo is all about planes these days- he waves and says 'bye-bye' to every single one of them.

#MLSQuest 2014

With the end of the Premier League season close at hand and the World Cup still a couple of months out, I decided that I need something else for my soccer fix: so, I've decided that this will be the year where I finally, at long last, start watching and paying attention to Major League Soccer.

Problem is, I need a club to support.

I remember, vaguely, the early days of MLS, where intermittent games would pop on your television- or on the scratchy, straight out of 1975 looking special preview of the Fox Soccer Channel your buddy had for a week or so.   They were all played in gigantic, empty looking NFL stadiums.  The crowds looked tiny, the quality of the game was, well, lacking and in general, it was pretty grim to watch.  So, in general, for the first decade or so of it's existence, I ignored MLS.

But this past Sunday, I actually put my feet up at work (it was Easter, so surprisingly, Campus was quiet) and watched most of a game between the Chicago Fire and the New England Revolution.  And you know what?  It was actually fairly watchable and enjoyable.  It ended in a draw (so not as enjoyable as it could have been) but each team got a PK- New England used their to tie it up and Chicago had a change to go ahead late but their PK was saved, so it was an exciting finish at least.   All of which convinced me that I needed to sit down, do my research, watch some teams so that, by season's end, I can pick a team from the homegrown league to support along with my choice from the Motherland, Arsenal.

And really, this seems to be an intriguing time to jump into MLS.   They're launching another wave of expansion with franchises set to land in Orlando (Orlando City FC), New York City (New York City FC) and now, somewhat randomly, Atlanta.  Beckham is working on bringing one to Miami and it's raised some concerns in some quarters that MLS is, once again, biting off more than it can chew.

Orlando makes sense.  There's been a USL franchise there since 2010 that's attracted and sustained support from the community- support vocal enough that MLS got interested and moved them on up.   NYC makes sense- it would make more sense to move the New York Cosmos up from the NASL where they're currently playing (at least to me) but if the Yankees and Man City want an MLS team, that's fine- just another team I can hate!

Atlanta is where it gets somewhat baffling.  I mean, I get it from a media market point of view- but they're going to be playing in the new Atlanta Falcons stadium (and the trend in MLS has been, thankfully to insist on their own soccer specific venues) and I would have thought, given the strength of college soccer in the Carolinas that establishing a pro-franchise there would have made more sense.  But what do I know?  There's already a supporters Club, The Terminus Legion and it's already getting trolled by fans from Columbus.

Miami makes me queasier.  They, along with Tampa Bay lost their original MLS franchises to contraction in the late 90s and they're coming off a costly stadium deal with the Marlins and the Dolphins already want more money for their stadium.  I'm sure it's a beautiful, exotic city, but if I was Becks, I'd be looking elsewhere.

BUT- getting back to my original point!  I have a plethora of teams to choose from and the quality of play is getting better with every passing year.  You could argue that the sudden availability of the Premier League on American television might make people more likely to move away from MLS- but I think if the Premier League gets them into soccer, they might be more likely to find a homegrown club they can get behind and see more easily.

So after a consult with the incredibly helpful and informative MLS Reddit page, I've decided that this is what I'm looking for in a club:

1. A history of some winning: I don't need to bandwagon onto whatever club is the flavor of the month or has a history of dominance as of late.  Upper half of the league with some years of glory, potential for 'cutlery' works for me.

2. Geographic proximity:  somewhat important.  I think it'd be nice to be able to go and see whatever club I end up supporting with relative ease but it's not a dealbreaker.  (If I ended up in the Pacific Northwest, being a Whitecaps/Timber/Sounders fan would provide an excellent excuse to go for a visit.)

3. Aesthetics: I've got to like the look of the Club's crest and it's colors.  For example, The Columbus Crew intrigue me because, obviously, being an Iowa fan I've got plenty of black and gold Hawkeye gear, so why not add some more black and gold to my closet, right?  And yet their badge reminds me a little of Run-DMC- so I'm not sure how to feel about them yet.

So far:  The Chicago Fire and Sporting Kansas City intrigue me- but this quiz over at SB Nation told me I should be a Philadelphia Union fan, so go figure.  If you're an MLS fan reading this and want to make me a pitch as to why your club is better than all the other ones, give it your best shot in the comments.

Let the #MLSQuest...  BEGIN!

'The Wolverine' --A Review

Here's a notion:  can we all just agree to pretend that X-Men Origins: Wolverine, never happened?  I mean, can we just erase it from X-Men lore or treat it like the Bond Franchise treats Never Say Never Again, like a weird, mutant (ha ha!) of a film?  Can we do that?  Good, because this stand alone Wolverine film is far, far, far, far, far, far better than that was.

In 1945, turns out Logan (Hugh Jackman) was being held in a Japanese POW camp near Nagasaki- just before the a-bomb is dropped on the city, he rescues a Japanese officer named Yashida and shields him from the worst of the after effects.

Flash forward to present day, and Logan is living on a mountain somewhere in the Yukon, tormented by hallucinations of Jean Grey, whom he was forced to kill at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand (another movie I wish we could pretend never happened- greatest storyline in comics and you let Brett Ratner direct that?  What's wrong with people?)  Logan is eventually tracked down by Yukio, a mutant with precognitive abilities to foresee people's deaths, on behalf of the now old and dying of cancer Yashida- who is also the CEO of a large technology corporation.  He wants to repay his life debt to Logan and after some persuasion, Yukio gets him on a plane and they head off to Japan.

When they get to Japan, Logan meets Yashida's son, Shingen, his granddaughter Mariko and his creepy oncologist Dr. Green.  Yashida formally thanks Logan for saving his life, but offers something else:  the ability to transfer Logan's healing abilities into his body, which would save his life and alleviate Logan's immortality, which he views as a curse.  He refuses and prepares to leave.  That night, he dreams that Dr. Green (whom I guess is Viper) introduces something into Logan's body, but he thinks it is a dream.

The next morning, he learns that Yashida has died and stays for the funeral, where Yakuza attempt to kidnap Mariko, but she and Logan flee into downtown Tokyo.   Logan gets shot in the process and his wounds do not heal as quickly as they should.  After fighting off more Yakuza on a bullet train, they eventually make their way south to Yashida's house in Nagasaki and start to fall for one another.

Mariko is then kidnapped and taken back to her father, Shingen at Yashida's estate, but ninjas attack and whisk her away before Logan and Yukio can stop them.  They realize that Logan's healing abilities are being suppressed by a robotic implant in his heart and he cuts it open while Yukio holds off Shingen long enough for Logan to repair the damage.  Once his back, bad and down with his bad self once more, Logan kills Shingen and tracks Mariko to a secret base in the north, where there is one last climactic confrontation that reveals the secrets of both Viper and the mysterious Silver Samurai.

Overall: What a great, solid movie- perfect for this character and a perfect continuation of the story already established in the first three X-Men movies.  We see a bruised, battered and hurting Logan get pulled back into the world, find love and by the end of the movie, find a little peace for himself- even if it might prove to be temporary.  Love the story, love the setting, loved the characters...  I haven't read the comic storyline this is based on, but I have a feeling it does it justice.  If you want to do more stand-alone X-Men movies, please, make them more like this: **** out of ****

This Week In Vexillology #77

This Week in Vexillology, we're sticking around the Pacific and heading east from Micronesia to take a peek at the flag of Kiribati:

Adopted July 12, 1979 for national and civil usage following independence from Great Britain.  It's an armorial banner- so it's design corresponds exactly to that of it's Coat of Arms.   The blue and white wavy bands on the bottom half of the flag represent the Pacific Ocean.  The bird- which is a frigate bird symbolizes command of the sea.  The 17 rays of the sun represent the 16 Gilbert Islands and Banaba (which I guess was formerly Ocean Island) and the bird above the sun is taken from the Shield on the Coat of Arms.

Kiribati is the local pronunciation of the original, colonial name for the island chain (interestingly enough the name in the actual local language is Tungaru- Kiribati is the locals pronunciation of the Gilberts in what Wikipedia refers to as 'Gilbertese'.) the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.  In 1975, the Ellice Islands split off from the Gilberts to become the independent nation of Tuvalu.

The Line Islands (part of Kiribati) were used by the UK and the US for nuclear testing back in the 50s and 60s and, of course, Tarawa Atoll where the capitol of South Tarawa is located today was the site of a major battle in the 2nd World War.

So there you have it- the flag of Kiribati.  Until next time, keep your flags flying- FREAK or otherwise.

Marvel's Ambition: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America 2

Marvel broke into television this past fall with the launch of their first television show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and for the most part, the first part of the season fans sort of yawned.  There was a lot of character development, a lot of middling episodes and by midseason you got the impression that the vast majority of the nerd commentariat was either fed up with the whole thing or just bored by it.  

But something changed midseason--  Deathlok showed up.  Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) figured out how he had managed to survive getting stabbed in the heart with a big alien deathstick in The Avengers and ever since then, it's become an increasingly interesting show and the producers weren't shy about letting everyone know that Captain America 2 was going to have some very interesting ripple effects on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D- how much of a ripple effect only became clear this past week- and the depth of Marvel's ambition and sheer brilliance became clear along with it.

So the Tuesday before Captain America 2, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D had a very interesting episode.  They got together with some buddies and went looking for their mysterious bad guy, The Clarivoyant- they found a creepy looking dude in a wheelchair who got shot by Agent Ward and much drama ensued. But one of their buddies/fellow S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Agent Sitwell announces, almost as an aside at the toward the end of the episode that 'he has a boat to catch.'

Seems like nothing, right?  Well then, if you went to go see Captain America 2 when it dropped- guess where Cap and Company drop into right away?   A boat- where none other than Agent Sitwell is waiting, hostage of some random pirates, to be rescued.  But wait- it gets better!  The events of Captain America 2 (no, I'm not going to spoil it, go see it already) lead directly back into the episode of this week's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Everyone is aware of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how all their movies are loosely connected to each other, but I don't think I've ever seen a concept like that cross mediums and do so as seamlessly as Marvel managed to do with AoS and Captain America 2.  Their ambition is seemingly limitless and color me really, really impressed.   If you haven't been paying attention- or missed it, go check it out.   It amazing and unique to watch.

Hillsborough: 25 Years Later

This Wednesday marks the 25th Anniversary of one of the worst tragedies in sports- the Hillsborough Disaster.   I wasn't really paying attention to the Premier League (or the First Division as it was then known) at the time, but the death of 96 people changed sports in the UK forever- especially when it came to stadium design. (Every stadium in the UK are now all-seater stadiums, prior to Hillsborough many had terraces where fans could stand.)

Every Premier League game (and the Welsh Premier League, FA Cup and the other eight divisions in English Football) this weekend started seven minutes late to mark the Anniversary- one minute of silence for those that died and six minutes late, because the FA Cup Semifinal between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool was halted six minutes into the game once the crowd began spilling onto the pitch and the police began to realize the magnitude of the problem that was developing at that end of the field.

Watching the match footage, randomly found on YouTube is chilling.   It just seems like a normal, regular football match but as you watch the minutes tick by, the occasional glance and flick of the camera to that end of the pitch shows that something is happening- but nobody realizes how desperate the situation is- how people are already fighting for their lives.

But the old saying with this tragedy holds very, very true:  the cover-up was, in many ways, worse than the crime.  An hourlong documentary on the Beeb shows that there was insufficient police presence on hand for crowd control and it took a criminally long time for ambulances to arrive on the scene.  But in the late 80s, after a decade of English soccer hooliganism, it was all too easy for the police to blame the fans rather than admit fault in the tragedy.

25 years later and many still want Justice For The 96.

I've always been somewhat agnostic about Liverpool F.C.  They never had the same annoying bandwagoning fans that Manchester United seemed to attract in droves, thanks to David Beckham's six pack- but I've never had any reason to dislike them.  (I mean, obviously, when they play Arsenal and beat them I'm less than enthused.)  But today, I'm a Liverpool fan.  Today, everyone should be a Liverpool fan.

Cutting German

In a strange paradox for a School District that's about to embark on a veritable orgy of construction and expansion, the Iowa City Community School District announced a series of budget cuts last week that include, amongst other things, phasing out Foreign Language for 7th Graders and phasing out German for all grades.

Students and supporters of German have launched an effort to try and save their favorite language- but the Superintendent is holding firm (for now) saying that all cuts are final.

I love foreign languages.  I took two of them in high school (French and Spanish) and picked up a few more in college (Portuguese, Swahili and two semesters of Hindi and one mind meltingly hard semester of Arabic.)   I think foreign languages are incredibly important and to be honest, in a perfect world, they'd be taught through elementary school and straight through high school.  In fact, I desperately miss using my foreign language skills and if I go back to school for anything, there's a decent chance it'll be for linguistics or to pick up a major or two in a foreign language.

In a global economy and an increasingly interconnected world, we need more foreign languages not less.  You can take all the anthropology, history and cultural awareness classes you want- you could collect whole majors from every country you could think of with the word 'Studies' after them and the 100% best way to understand a culture is to learn the language that they speak.

So, for all those reasons, this is an incredibly stupid decision that I absolutely disagree with.  Personally, of all the things I allegedly learned in high school, algebra is probably the one with the least practical application in my education hence- so I would cut anything, it would probably be math.  But that's just me.

Despite my love of foreign language however, I can sort of kind of understand why German got the big heave-ho.  It was never the most popular foreign language class even when I was in high school and you were left with the distinct impression that German was taught because so many of the immigrants that originally settled Iowa were German in origin.   Really, the decline of German has probably been coming for the better part of a century- when the US entered World War I and got all persnickety about people with German sounding names and speaking too much German, I would imagine that began the decline of German-language newspapers and a lot of it's every day use in homes and businesses.

Today, while it is the language of Europe's biggest and most stable economy, you can make the argument that it would be a good language to learn if you wanted to major in International Business- problem is that you can make better arguments for a dozen or so other languages that fit the bill as well. My personal criteria for foreign language is what kind of geographic or population area you're picking up when you learn one.  So, Spanish?  Gets you the majority of Latin America (with the exception of Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana)- French gets you large chunks of Africa, bits of Southeast Asia, not to mention France.  Even Portuguese gets you Brazil, Portugal, Lusophone Africa,- Chinese and Hindi will get you a billion people a piece, but what does German get you?

Germany and Switzerland.  Not that much, geographically speaking.

That doesn't mean it's not important.  That doesn't mean people shouldn't have the opportunity to learn it.  It just means that, as languages go, it's got limited mileage, so to speak. Alas, I have a feeling that's why the ICCSD is saying auf wiedersein to German.

'The Bling Ring' --A Review

I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this movie.  It was a good movie.  The cast was excellent, the story compelling- even ridiculously so when you realized it was based off of events that actually happened in real life. Plus, as an added bonus, it was directed by Sofia Coppola, so the soundtrack was excellent.  (I tried leaving Shazam on auto on my phone and captured all the songs.  Which is a pretty neat feature, actually, though I wouldn't just leave it on all the time.)  Yet despite that, I felt like there was something lacking in this movie-  it seemed, shallow and even a little superficial at times.  But given that that characters are all rich and entitled teens, I suppose that's sort of fitting, I guess.

When new kid Marc (Israel Broussard) rolls into town and ends up at Indian Hills High School in Calabasas he is soon befriended by fame loving Rebecca (Katie Chang.)  While at a party, they check unlocked vehicles on the street, and, finding a few, take cash, credit cards and other valuables out of the cars.  They soon graduate to checking out houses of rich acquaintances whom they know to be out of town and then they start breaking into the houses of various celebrities who are out of town as well.

Along the way they meet Rebecca's friends, Nicki (Emma Watson), her adopted sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga) and Chloe (Claire Julien) and soon the gang is breaking back into celebrity houses and stealing all kinds of fun stuff as they go.  After a couple of trips to Paris Hilton's house, they follow that up with a break-in at Audrina Patridge's house, then Megan Fox's house (Nicki's younger sister squeezes in through a dog door to get them access.)  Legolas (Orlando Bloom) is nexty- and they steal a whole box of his Rolexes and a fat wad of cash to go along with it.  Then it's back to Paris Hilton (this time with Sam's boyfriend, Rob, along for the ride) and despite a news report with CCTV footage of them doing the deed at Audrina Patridge's house, they keep going and add Rachel Bilson's house and Lindsey Lohan's house to their list of conquest.

Then, Rebecca skips town.  Well, she says she's moving to Vegas to live with her dad to avoid troubles at home, but really, she's skipping town and as the media scrutiny intensifies, teenagers do what teenagers always do in these situations: they talk, they get caught and they all get a variety of jail time for their troubles. The film ends with Nicki doing a media interview and urging fans to follow her website, in an attempt to cash in on her infamy.

Overall:  Meh.   Emma Watson was unrecognizable in this movie and was a pleasure to watch- the rest of the cast is young, energetic and up to the challenge.  The cinematography is excellent, the soundtrack is amazing, but overall...   meh.   Good, but not great- though if you want a glimpse of one of the bandits in real life, this clip is pretty amusing and representative.   I'd say ** 1/2 out of ****.

This Week In Vexillology #76

Last week, we looked at the flag of Iraq- but this week, we're heading deep into the Pacific Ocean to take a look at the flag of my all-time favorite, go-to Hangman clue.  That's right, this week in vexillology, it's the Federated States of Micronesia:

Reading up on Micronesia actually sort of makes me want to go visit the place.  Get this: their unicameral Congress has 14 members elected by popular vote.  That's right.  14 members. I could get used to the idea of a Congress with only fourteen members.  After World War II, Micronesia was administered as a UN Trust Territory by the US until it entered into a compact of Free Association with the United States in 1979 and became an independent state of its own.  (Palau, The Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands did not participate.)  Thanks to the compact with the US, Micronesians can serve in the US Military without having to obtain residency or citizenship and can immigrate and work in the United States as well.

BUT:  to the flag!  Adopted on November 30, 1978 for national and civil usages, the light blue field recalls the Pacific Ocean, while the stars each represent a state/island group in the country.  (The states are:  Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei and Yap, if you were wondering.) The shade of blue recalls the flag of the United Nations as well.

Interestingly enough, a quick check of Orbitz reveals that you can, in fact, catch a flight to the Island of Yap in Micronesia from Cedar Rapids for the low low price of $2,632.   (Cedar Rapids-Minneapolis-Tokyo-Guam-Yap, 46 hours and 40 minutes total flying time.)

So there you have it, kids- the flag of Micronesia!  As always, remember until next time, keep your flags flying- FREAK or otherwise.

My Sordid Car History

So, we got new wheels:

And, for the first time in my life, I feel like i'm turning the corner on my sordid car history and, you know what, it feels really really good- especially since the Mini Cooper has been on my personal bucket list of cars for awhile now.

(For the Record, my personal car bucket list is as follows:
Subaru (any)
Subaru Baja (don't know why I love these, but I do.  I think they look cool.)
Jeep Wrangler (two door preferred- but would settle for a four door.  And don't care if it's hard/soft top)
Toyota Tacoma (the double cab-primarily because of this.  And because I think they're the perfect size for a pick-up.)
Range Rover Evoque (marginally less achievable, but sexiest SUV I've ever seen.)
Lotus Evora (my ideal mid-life crisis sports mobile- again, I know- keep dreaming!)
An Aston Martin (any of them really- they're just sexy as hell.))

But, speaking of my sordid car history:  I haven't had the best of luck with cars.

My first car:  a beat up Chevy Cavalier.  My roommate at the time was heading to Japan to teach English for a year and wanted to unload his car.  I was moving to Minnesota for Grad School and needed one.  $500 later and I had one new car.  It was exciting but within a month, I had added $800 of work to that car.  New brakes, rotors, drums, solenoid gasket and the damn thing would never retain coolant.  I spent a small fortune on antifreeze and, of course, living in Minnesota, the damn thing absolutely hated the cold.  It had this tendency, usually in January (when Minnesota was the coldest) of starting up fine- but bizarrely, the electrical system would never kick in.  Which left me with the unenviable choice of holding my breath while I drive or driving with the windows open.  Needless to say, this car went to the salvage yard.

Second car:  a Buick Cutlass- named Rocket.  A hand-me-down from the Missus' family, Rocket was a dream. It was an older car, but it was in immaculate condition and lasted me a couple of years with no real problems until we decided to trade in and get a couple of cars to help the Missus and I get to our respective jobs at the time, which brings us to...

The Third Car:  A Hyundai Elantra named Kimchee!  We actually doubled up on the Hyundais this time around-  the Missus loved her Tucson and I loved my Elantra.  I think about this car a lot and I'd be totally open to getting a Hyundai again.  This was a good car with decent gas mileage and a nice bit of giddy-up of under the hood. But the Missus went back to school and we wanted to save money, so we went down from two cars to one which brings us to...

Susie Subaru!  I've always been a big fan of Subarus-  we had one growing up for awhile- it was actually the second car my parents purchased after moving to the States (we had a Blue Pontiac, first).  They're roomy, gas mileage is decent and they're so, so, so reliable (the damn things last forever) and she's still around today- and honestly, I think we're going to drive that thing until it drops dead, we love it that much.

We went back up from one car to two last June when The Cigarillo arrived and we snagged a 1996 Chrysler Cirrus for $750 and that barely limped through the winter.  We were going to see if we could fix it up and ride it out until we got Susie paid off, but a peek at the brakes revealed way more damage than we could fix ourselves and I wasn't going to pay someone $1200 to do it.  So, that's how we ended up with the Mini.

I am officially loving life, bombing around in my sweet ride and seriously considering going to the Parentals House to steal their copy of The Italian Job-  the real one with Michael Caine (coincidentally, he's the one we named the Mini after) not the Hollywood Travesty with Mark Wahlburg that was called The Italian Job despite having pretty much nothing whatsoever to do with fucking Italy.

#American Blogger: You're Doing It Wrong

So I stumbled into a random, wide reaching and very interesting discussion on Twitter today- entirely by accident and, well, since 140 characters is somewhat limiting when it comes to really getting down to the nitty gritty of an issue, I thought I'd bang out some more thoughts on here just for kicks.  So, what did I stumble into, might you ask?

This.  It's a random article on Gawker with a trailer for an upcoming documentary called 'American Blogger.'  Being a blogger myself and drawing a ton of news and information from the wide, crazy world that is the blogosphere, I was intrigued enough to check out the trailer.   And that is where the fun begins...

Just to be clear:  the conclusions that I'm about to draw are based entirely on the trailer.  If the movie addresses all of the concerns/objections that I'm about to raise then I will be the first to apologize- probably on this blog.  Got that?  Good.

So from what I can tell, this filmmaker retrofitted an old Airstream and took off on a cross country journey to track down and interview various bloggers to find out what blogging is all about and what makes a blogger a blogger.   No problems so far-  in fact, looking at the sentence I just wrote, I'll admit that sounds like a really interesting premise.  However, if the trailer is anything to go by- the 'American Blogger' is a predominantly white woman between the ages of 20-35. (I did spy an African-American blogger and maybe another person of color- to be totally fair about it- but there were a lot of white women in this preview.)

Yes, that's right- this guy travelled 15,000 miles across the great American landscape with great cinematography and manages to capture a relatively tiny slice of the overall blogosphere and doesn't appear to go anywhere near the essence of what the typical 'American Blogger' (if such a thing can be said to exist) is.

Does this take anything away from the bloggers that he does interview?  Absolutely not.  The beauty of the blogosphere is that everyone's voice is 100% valid because, after all, it's your voice.   It's unique and it adds to the crazy diversity of the blogosphere, which is, to me, what makes blogging so awesome. You can find any type of blog for absolutely anything.

My problem is that if you're going to make a documentary and call it 'American Blogger' there's an implication to me that you're supposed to be looking for what makes an 'American Blogger.'  And I'm sorry, but somewhere, something went off the rails here.  First of all, the topic is freaking huge.  It'd be challenging enough to seriously take this idea on just on paper- on film, if done right- or hell, even anywhere close to right- you could have seriously produced a fantastic documentary- I mean, award-winning- shit, Academy Award winning!  This is one of those idea that might actually be impossible to film.  But if you're going to attempt it, then you shouldn't half-ass it.  You shouldn't pick the one area of the blogosphere that you think is going to get your documentary the most viewers possible-  packing your preview with attractive women- women that, I suspect from a marketing perspective were designed to be eye candy to put butts in seats, is insulting and more than a little demeaning to me.

Secondly, why is this a documentary?  Is this supposed to be about blogging or his journey around the country meeting some bloggers?  I'm confused- if it's about his journey, then fine- in fact, it's more than fine- if that's his vision, then great.  Bring it on! But don't call it 'American Blogger.'  It's fundamentally misleading, to me:  a documentary entitled 'American Blogger' should be about American Bloggers- not a small, relatively homogenous sample size of the American blogosphere. 

Thirdly, so now we've established that this documentary, on face value, seems more than a little limiting- so, you might ask, why don't you, Tom, go out and make a better movie?  That's a good point.  If I had the passion, funding and the knowledge to actually do it- I just might- and here, to me, are the minimum things/people you would need to talk about to get a grasp on blogging, the blogosphere and the real portrait of the 'American Blogger.'

I'd want to look at the political blogosphere- both right and left.  You have to talk to Instapundit, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Drudge, The Huffington Post- you can dip into the legal side of things and look at blogs like The Volokh Conspiracy and Althouse- not to mention SCOTUSBlog.  You'd want to look at feminist blogs like Jezebel or Feministing-  look at the world of sports and what Deadspin does, but you'd also want to look at phenomena like Black Twitter- or entertainment based blogs like Perez Hilton.  But- you'd also want to shrink down from the big, 'macro' perspective and look at smaller blogs- personal blogs, Etsy type blogs, food and parenting blogs.  Blogging as a phenomena has democratized the idea of communication, in a way. (Someone has written a book about this- and probably several more I haven't read besides.)  You don't need to find a guy with a soapbox- you can be the soapbox.  You can build your own!

There is, absolutely, no way whatsoever, you could get it all.  But I do think it would be possible to make a documentary that illustrates the massive cultural and societal impact that the development and explosion of blogging has had on the United States.  That would be a documentary I would want to watch.  That might even be an important documentary.

Do I think it will 'change the way anyone views an industry?'  No. While I acknowledge that blogging can be a very very good way to sell things to people, viewing it as an industry is limiting.  It's a perspective that's not incorrect, but it really does depend on what you blog for.   I don't blog to market things.   The odds of my blog going viral and breaking out and getting a readership like Drudge or Instapundit is minimal.  I know that.   I do this for me, because I love to write and I write about things that interest me- and as a result, my blog is somewhat hard to market. (This is a problem I've run into with my first novel as well.  Ooooh- see what I did there?) I don't fit comfortably into one niche of the blogosphere more than the other- which is why I actually spun out my food blogging into a blog of it's own just last month- in an attempt to give my foodie adventures a home and give this blog a more clearly defined identity.

But here's the beautiful part about this whole debate, to me:  a lot of it is a moot point.  If this is the guy's vision and the film he wants to make, then more power to him- the blogosphere is fundamentally about a multiplicity of voices- the more the merrier, in fact.  But blogging is bigger than what this trailer seem to be implying.  Much, much bigger and perhaps more importantly, more diverse- there are bloggers out there of every race, color, creed, sexual orientation, political persuasion that talk about every topic that you can possibly imagine.  It would have been nice to see some of that- some hint of that somewhere in the preview. 

And just in case anyone that's actually read this soliloquy of mine through to end is wondering- this isn't a case of 'methinks he doth protest too much' either.  No one should hunt me down and interview me about blogging.  There are tons of straight, white, married guys out there doing their thing.  An interview with me wouldn't illustrate anything much and it certainly wouldn't add to a documentary about the diversity and impact of the blogosphere.

In the end, I guess I remain somewhat puzzled by this.  Either there's something I'm missing here, or dude, you're doing it wrong.

So... Baseball?

Baseball is back.

Normally I would greet this news with a somewhat underwhelming yawn.  The first stretch of the interminable baseball season is always, without fail, annoying.  The Sports Punditry will anoint some team as the one to watch for eight or nine months down the road in the fall and when that team loses two or three of the seemingly three hundred or so baseball games that get played every year, ESPN will be awash with stories and furrowed brows about how this might spell trouble for The Anointed Team come the fall- it could be bad omen a portent of things to come, the first sign of DOOOOOOOOOOM...

And I get irritated because baseball starts when the snow has barely melted in some places and ends when it's starting again in others- it's like eight to nine months long- so why give a shit until August?  I never do. What these days are, however, are the days when you actually feel good that baseball is back. It's like, 'oh, football's long done, basketball is about to be done- and oh hey, the weather might be getting warmer- because baseball's back.'  It's a nice feeling that lasts until about June- and then the novelty wears off just in time for the All-Star Break and then (to me, anyway) baseball gets really interesting- or marginally less boring.

But, I have to admit, my interest is a little more piqued this year.  Last year, everything seemed to go pear-shaped for the Twins early on, but this year they seem to be winning a game or two and The Sports Punditry seems to think that their vaunted farm system spells better news in 2015.  Let's hope so.

Grantland also had a nice, long piece reassuring the Cubs faithful that they should breathe easier and look towards 2016-2018 and you know what- Iowa Baseball seems to have a pulse!  They flashed out to their best start since 1940, which is pretty damn impressive considering I watch next to zero in the way of college baseball.

The past couple of months have been utterly loopy and with our reconnection to Direct TV, I seem to have lost NBC Sports and with it my Premier League Soccer (sad face) but I'm actually looking forward to what Champions League action I can get, baseball and the countdown to the World Cup is on- but baseball wise, the big event of the year is going to be taking The Cigarillo to his first baseball game this August.

Nirvana: 20 Years Later

This past weekend was the 20th Anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death and as a result, there was a brief bubble of Nirvana-related news on the radio and a lot of reflections about what impact the band had on the music and culture in general in the two decades hence- which got me to thinking about the impact they had on my musical tastes and development- (would development be the right word?  I don't know.) And the weird conclusion I came too was that they were incredibly influential- just not at the time they were actually popular and on the radio.

I wasn't very adventurous, musically speaking, back in the halcyon days of my youth- I had a simple cassette player/radio and Hootie and the Blowfish's Cracked Rear View, Counting Crows' August and Everything After and Fleetwood Mac's The Dance were my first three cassettes.   So yeah, I was a pretty vanilla top 40 radio type of kid.  (Oh, I forgot Green Day's Dookie.  They were an early purchase as well.) Back in those days, Q103 was my radio station of choice and it was that weird period of late 80s/early 90s type of music that marked my first ventures into discovering what music I liked, didn't like, etc, etc.

So I was very much aware of Nirvana, I just didn't listen to them all that much.  I got wrapped up in the Ace of Base/Real McCoy/Crystal Waters type of neo-dance music that was popular back then.  Open House Party with John Garabedian was my Saturday night tradition and if I listened to any grunge on the radio, it was usually Pearl Jam or this cut from Nivana's MTV Unplugged:



Then, Q103 traumatized my late junior high/early high school years by going country and after that I didn't really listen to the radio-  and it's my impression that pretty much from 8th Grade until about my senior year in high school when The White Stripes, The Strokes and the rest of the new indy rock wave touched down, music pretty much blew ass.  I was not a fan of the boy bands or Bubblegum pop- and I'm sure there was other great, alternative music out there- I just didn't know where to find it or even start looking.  My musical taste was pretty much formed by what I could hear- or not hear on the radio.

In college, however, things changed a little and I began to explore a lot more.  I got really into The Cure and The Clash and The Sex Pistols and Joy Division and then (it was nowhere near as horrifying then as it is now) I started to hear Stone Temple Pilots on the radio- the classic rock station of all things and that lead me back into grunge.  I hit up Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.* and rediscovered a lot of old music from back in the day that I had forgotten about entirely.  It was like meeting an old friend over again-  not that I was all that anxious to think about how wonderful Junior High was, but there was just so much music I had forgotten about- and, more to the point, I had forgotten how much I loved it.  Nirvana was one of those bands.

So, did they change my life?  Did they make me want to learn an instrument and get my angst out in moody lyrics and plaid shirts?   Not really- but they will forever be associated with those twin periods in my life where I first started listening to the radio and discovering music for myself.  And while that might not seem like a lot to some people, it's a big deal to me.

*Best story ever from back in those days-  Eldest Cigar Sister was out looking for a Savage Garden album and accidentally purchased a Soundgarden Greatest Hits CD.  Guess who got to keep that?

'Catching Fire' --A Review

Catching Fire is one of those beautiful rarities in Hollywood:  a sequel that actually improves upon it's predecessor and not only that, delivers an exciting, thrilling romp into the twisted world of Panem that we had been introduced to in The Hunger Games.

As Catching Fire opens, we find that Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) are trying desperately to preserve some semblance of normality about their lives now that the two of them have returned home- however, the government is about to uproot them once more and send them on a Victory Tour throughout the other twelve districts and that means that the dangers they hoped were behind them have returned- along with some new ones as well.

The day of their departure, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) pays an unexpected visit to Katniss and tells her that he is angry with her for breaking the rules at the end of the last Hunger Games to let both Katniss and Peeta win and moreover, her defiance of the Capitol has inspired rebellion in the districts.  He also reveals that he is well aware of her romance with Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and tells her that as long as she and Peeta's love remains convincing and they toe the line that Capitol sets to try and calm down the unrest in the Districts, they might, just maybe, be all right.

But from the very first day of their Victory Tour we see that things are far from all right.   A speech at District 11 (home to Katniss' fallen counterpart Rue from the first movie) turns into a bloodbath and a riot as an old man raises a salute in defiance and is promptly executed for it.  Realizing that their families and friends are under threat unless they toe to the Capitol's line, Peeta and Katniss decide to get married and announce their engagement at the star-studded culmination of their Victory Tour.

Returning home, Katniss is ready to make a break for it and flee into the woods with Gale and their families, but Peacekeepers arrive to terrorize the populace and Katniss has to intervene to save him and that's when President Snow unveils his next nasty surprise, the 75th Hunger Games, drawn from previous victors of past Hunger Games.  Of course, Katniss' immediate plan is to ensure Peeta's safety.  She makes Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) promise to volunteer in his place if Peeta is chosen, but Haymitch's name is drawn and despite his urging Peeta volunteers to fight alongside Katniss once again.

Soon enough, they're back in the Capitol with a new Gamesmaker, Plutach Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and new allies and enemies to consider, they're back in the ring and facing a whole new set of dangers and challenges, but the secrets this arena hold prove to run very deep indeed as the victors are, in fact, members of a conspiracy designed to smuggle Katniss out to be a symbol of the new rebellion- however in the process, Peeta and Johanna (Jena Malone) are captured.  A distraught Katniss is sedated and she wakes to find herself enroute to District 13, headquarters of the new rebellion, Gale by her side, who informs her that her family is safe, but that District 12 no longer exists.

Overall:  The first Hunger Games move was a solid adaptation of the book but it didn't make my socks roll up and down all that much.  The sequel packs more action, more plot development and more of pretty much everything into it and the viewer is left satisfied and wanting more.  The themes of dependence versus independence (Katniss and Peeta, locked together despite Katniss wanting to be free, the District dependent on the Capitol, yet wanting to be free) are deepened here and the full scale of the brutal repression of the Capitol's dystopia becomes clearer.  In all, this feels like a more complete movie that its predecessor and, as a result, I can't wait for Mockinjay- Part 1 and Part 2.  **** out of ****

This Week In Vexillology #75

Last week, we took a look at the flag of Ukraine- but this week, we're heading to the Middle East to take a look at the newest version of a flag whose history stretches all the way back to the Arab Revolt- yes, that's right- you can't spell 'quagmire' without Iraq!

The basic horizontal tricolor of red, white and black has remained unchanged since the ascension of the Ba'ath party in 1963.  What has been modified over the years are the symbols in the middle. (More on those in a minute.)  The red in the tricolor represents courage, the white represents generosity and the black recalls the triumph of Islam- the symbols in the center have always been green, the traditional color of Islam.

Now to the good stuff- the symbols.  From 1963-1991, the flag of Iraq looked like this:

From 1963 to about 1986, the three stars represented hopes for Arab unity in the region- which started to dim after the breakup of the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) in 1961.  That flag looked like this one, except it only had two stars (one for Egypt and the other for Syria)- this flag had a third star, representing Iraq and Ba'athist hopes that Iraq would join another union between the three countries.  Saddam Hussein altered the meaning of the stars in 1986 to represent the tenets of the Ba'ath party motto: Unity, Freedom and Socialism.

From 1991-2004, the flag looked like this:

The Arabic script between the stars represents the Takbir (the words Allahu Akbar, which means God is Great)- but the sort of interesting kicker to this is that the form of the Takbir on the flag is in Saddam's own handwriting.  (Bonus knowledge, thanks to Wikipedia:  as with other flags inscribed with Arabic script, the hoist is to the right of the front of the flag- so instead of having the flagpole on the left side of the image, it'd be on the right.)

From 2004-2008, the flag remained the same, only this time the Takbir was cast in the traditional Kufic script- which is used, before the stars were dropped and the flag assumed it's present form.

So I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same- (the irony of applying that statement to the region's geopolitical mess is not lost on me either.)  Give it up for the flag of Iraq- and remember, until next time, keep your flags flying- FREAK or otherwise.

Bookshot #75: The Years of Rice and Salt

I've read my fair share of alternate history books over the years and this magnificent, beautiful gem from Kim Stanley Robinson might be the only one that truly lives up to the notion of a history that is really 'alternate.'  Counter-factuals and 'what-ifs' have spawned a whole sub-genre over the years:  What if the south won the Civil War?  What if Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and Britain and France had decided to fight?  What if, instead of America, they discovered the lost continent of Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic?  What if Spain had conquered Britain in 1588 and the Armada had not sunk?  I could go on and on and on- there's bookshelves of these things.

But what they all have in common is that none of the break free from the mold of history that's already existing:  they tweak existing events and change the outcomes, but stay within the framework of events that have gone before- Kim Stanley Robinson apparently wasn't satisfied with that, because he set himself probably the biggest challenge I've ever seen in this genre and pulled it off with his usual deeply engrossing, carefully literate style:  What if the Black Plague had wiped out Europe?  What kind of world would have then?

You could have a lot of fun with a concept like that just by setting in it in the present day, but Robinson goes big or goes home by laying out a world history that stretches over centuries by dividing the novel into ten books- with characters are are loosely connected throughout the narrative by reincarnation (everyone gets to spend sometime in the Bardo at the end of each book), with each character having the same letter of their first name throughout the book.

The world that Robinson draws looks very different from our own:  Islam dominates the Middle East, Africa and pushes up into Spain and then France as they start to repopulate what was Europe before the plague.  In the east, China becomes the primary world power- discovering the New World, but deciding against conquest and leaving the native populations largely unmolested- but not before introducing new diseases into the population.

We see early concepts of feminism emerge in the progressive Emirate of Nsara, which Utopian-minded Muslims marched north from Spain to found in southern France-  it also stirs in the writings of a Chinese Widow named Kang Tongbi.  The scientific method is founded by an Alchemist in Samarkand.   Industrialization starts in the Indian State of Travancore and completely changes the game- and a Japanese refugee, fleeing from the Chinese domination of his people reaches the Iroquois people and tells them to make guns and fight to preserve their independence and way of life- and they do.

The inevitable clash of civilizations comes between the Chinese and Islam- a Long War lasting nearly sixty years and everything that follows that is just recovering, learning and growing from such a titanic disaster.

Overall: Robinson brings his usual literary genius to the proceedings- his characters are well drawn and believable- and the world he builds in The Years of Rice and Salt is believable, fascinating and packed to the gills with subtle details (they use air ships, not airplanes- and the units of measurements are different- Robinson covers every angle.) Meticulous, beautiful in structure, haunting in the questions that it raises and the world it imagines snares the reader in a beautiful book.   I had given up on Alternate History as a sub-genre.  This book vaults to the head of the class- you could probably slot it right in next to Phillip K. Dick's Man In The High Caste.  **** out of ****

Not As Bad As I Thought, But Still Bad

CNN paused from it's 24-7 coverage of the latest on the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 to fling a disturbing bit of news into my Twitter feed this morning-  I thought that it was announcing that the Supreme Court had struck down limits on the amount of money people could donate to any one candidate during an election.   I had a bit of a Twitter rant about it, but then I actually read a news article about it and discovered more than what CNN could fit into 140 characters.

It's not quite that bad, but it's still pretty bad.  Instead, what they've done is kept the overall limits on money, but said you can donate that amount do however many candidates you want.  So, if you're a billionaire and want to go shopping for a Congressperson or a Senator, well, get the old Amex Black out of the wallet because it's party time.

Conservatives are, of course, responding to Liberal rage with snark about 'free speech' but here's where I come down on it:

1.  Money isn't speech.

2.  Direct contributions should be capped at $100 for everyone, regardless. (Don't get me wrong: I think if you want to cut an ad endorsing a candidate with your own money and put it on television, you should be free to do so.  If the NRA or the Sierra Club wants to endorse a candidate, they should be able to shout it from the rooftops- but by allowing people with more money to contribute more directly to a candidate, you're essentially legalizing bribery and peddling influence- because, come on- you think the guy who gives $25 is going to get more attention than the guy who gives $2500?  I don't think so.)

This is one of those things that absolutely enrages me because it's essentially selling off our democracy one court ruling at a time.  My Constitutional Rights are not commodities.  They're not predicated- nor should they ever be- on how much money I can contribute to a political candidate.  But the Supreme Court is basically saying that the rich can have more Constitutional Rights than everyone else.  Well, fuck that.  The idea we need be striving toward is one in which my contribution to a political party/candidate can get me as much influence as Donald Trump's contribution to that same political party/candidate.   Everyone needs to be playing by the same rules with this stuff to ensure the health of our democracy.  This ruling essentially says 'one standard for Richie Rich and another standard for you peasants.'   And Justice Thomas even noted that the court's ruling setting a cap on individual donations is weakening already.  That's going to be the next to go.

And if we're going to go after Judges on the State Level who rule in favor of gay marriage, I don't see why Supremes that rule in favor of the super-rich should be held to a different standard.  Someone needs to tell Al Franken to drop his silly shit about a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United- let's hold the Supreme Court accountable to the will of the people, shall we?  Retention votes, every ten years!