There's that moment in a race when you're about to get lapped and you look in the rearview mirror and see the other driver coming up on you. With a bit of creative delusion and the power of positive thinking you can, at that moment, pretend that you're actually ahead of the other guy. After a string of LB Saturdays and LB Mondays and what threatens, this week, to turn into a Left Behind Wednesday, I'm thinking that a bit... Read more
I've already discussed acting more than I intended to, but we should note here that Janaya Stephens has two Big Dramatic Scenes in this slice of the movie. The first is with CamCam, the second is with Brad Johnson. The difference is instructive. Scripts matter, but who you're working with matters just as much. Chloe and CamCam head back to the airport — a trip that seems particularly uneventful and un-post-Event-ful, particularly in light of CamCam's dire warning ("It's madness... Read more
Arianna B. sent along these glad tidings from Ottawa: Residents of a trailer park in Ottawa's west end are celebrating some good news — they likely won't lose their homes in 2009. … A year ago, the seniors and young families who own trailer homes in the Bellwood Mobile Home park in Nepean learned that the property that they rent was going up for sale, and residents would likely face eviction. By law, they would receive as compensation either $3,000... Read more
This is from Anne Lamott's "Advent Adventure," from her old Mothers Who Think column on Salon. (That link is still alive, 10 years after this was first posted, but someof thespaces betweenwords aremissing, so I'm pasting and posting the ending here for readability's sake, which I hope Salon won't mind, it being Christmas and all.) Merry Christmas, blessed Solstice, happy Hannukah. Emmanuel. – – – – – – – – – – – – So I called my Jesuit friend,... Read more
The "Fort Dix 5" — five Philadelphia-area men accused of plotting an implausible attack on the South Jersey Army base — were convicted of conspiring to commit murder. This was a murky case involving what the defense characterized as virtual entrapment by the FBI informant who seems to have masterminded the scheme. But what really troubled me throughout this trial was that in addition to the conspiracy charge — which accurately described what prosecutors said the men did — the... Read more
(Here's the video link if the embedded video above won't play in your browser.) Rayford Steele figures he owes Buck a favor for helping to subdue Mr. Panic on the airplane, so he offers to give him the name of a charter pilot who might be able to fly Buck to New York. The charter pilot is, of course, based right there at the airport. Instead of just giving Buck the name and wishing him good luck, though, Rayford brings... Read more
Harold has disappeared. He seems to have gone off naked. He doesn't have a name here in the movie, but those of us who read the book remember him as Harold. Like most of the characters in the novel, we have no idea what he looked like — short or tall, thin or fat, gray-haired or bald. We don't even know what he had been wearing, even though his clothes figure prominently in this section of the narrative. Here is... Read more
Scientists have demonstrated that dogs can feel envy. So says The New York Times and so says National Geographic. But scientists have not, in fact, done any such thing. What they actually seem to have demonstrated about dogs is far more interesting. The experiment in question actually had little to do with the deadly sin of envy and quite a bit to do with the cardinal virtue of justice. Here is the Times’ description of the experiment in question: The... Read more
Right, so, Part 3 … CamCam and the Girl With the Smudge are watching the video of Prophet Guy. The tape has him speaking in Hebrew, but CamCam remembers hearing him speak in English. This ought to be worth a second look. CamCam after all, doesn't understand Hebrew, yet he remembers exactly what the man told him. It would be a simple matter to translate the Hebrew on the tape and to confirm that it was the same message CamCam... Read more
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