The Ubiquitous Grammar Cop

Is it reasonable to argue that choice (or the awareness you have choice) is a fundamental aspect of independent thought?

Two Saturdays ago, I attended my high school reunion celebrating twenty years since graduation. I initially had reservations about going at first, but I wanted to see my how my high school classmates evolved (and I to them) over the last twenty years; vain curiosity trumped everything else. A little background first: I did not enjoy high school very much. I did not have the clichéd experience some people believe high school to be (on either end of the spectrum). My days in high school were dollops of “good”, heaping tablespoons of “bad”, all on top of a wide base of “meh”. With that in mind, I decided to leave most of my high school experiences (and the people involved) in the past and moved on. This worked for nineteen years until technology and web-based social networking rendered my efforts moot. As for the reunion itself, it had a much smaller number of people I had expected. Out of four hundred or so people in our graduating class, about sixty people showed up for the festivities ...

There is a cliché that claims, “You shouldn’t see the movie until you’ve read the book.” The trouble is, that advice doesn’t really work in every situation. There are some film adaptations that come from best sellers that will draw the attention of those who (sadly) prefer to see the work rather than read it, or inspire those who don’t haven’t had time to read to pick up the written work and see how it differs from the film. I admit I am a big fan of Harry Potter. The films initally attracted me to the novels and predictably, I enjoyed the novels more. My appreciation of the novels did not diminish my enjoyment of the film adaptations but with the release of the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HBP/f) last month, I can understand the criticism of the film. The criticism I hear most often are for the films not directed by Christopher Columbus, Philospoher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone (PS-SS/f) and Chamber of Secrets (CoS/f); many key elements in the books were glossed over or omitt...

This is a shoo-in as a candidate for the 2009 Stella Awards.

For the last couple of weeks or so the media has been highlighting the exciting events at local town hall meetings "debating" health care reform. Some of the anger is genuine, yet misplaced (these are the people who will never accept Barack Obama as President of the United States). Other people get their anger from spurious sources, egged on and paid for by the corporations who would prefer the system to remain as it is (it's part of the reason why their efforts have been dubbed Astroturf™ rather than grassroots). What has brought many people to an apoplectic frenzy recently are the comments made by former Alaskan governor (and media attention whore) Sarah Palin. In an interview on Saturday, 08 August 2009 she stated that she did not want her parents or her youngest child (who has Down's Syndrome) to go before a "Death Panel" if the proposed government-funded health care plan deemed them too expensive to care for. This is disgustingly cynical for two reason...

Two weeks ago Bill Maher, comedian and host of HBO's Real Time , was asked a question during an interview on CNN. Wolf Blitzer asks Maher if Sarah Palin would be a serious contender for President in 2012. In response Maher says, "I would never put anything past this stupid country." Consequently, Maher received a lot of flak for that comment. Based on the results of a Public Policy poll conducted in North Carolina this past week (thanks to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow for bringing it to my attention), perhaps the vitriolic criticism Maher received for his comments are not necessarily warranted. (Take note of questions four and five and the associated cross-tabs further down the document.)

Out of all the reasons why conservatives (Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats alike) propose why we should not have publicly funded health insurance, this has to be the weirdest. This meme reminds me of the classic movie Soylent Green . The movie is based in a futuristic dystopia where food is in short supply but Soylent Green, the miracle wafer, comes to the rescue. Given the movie stars Charlton Heston, a cheerleader of conservatism in his later years, and how the plot progresses to its famous last line, "Soylent Green is people!", I can see why opponents to health care/insurance reform decided to inject this air embolus into the bloodstream. To me, it's not a big leap. If the movie Soylent Green prompted these opponents to claim government funded health insurance will steer the elderly toward systematic euthanasia, there is a slight flaw. Soylent Green was not a product of the government. It was a product of the Soylent Corporation.