Saturday, May 31, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
Dealing with Bullies
A chilling story played out in a Maryland courtroom this week.
Two girls, 15 and 17, pleaded guilty to bullying a 16-year-old autistic boy. They were caught because they made and shared videos of what they did, including the following:
Trying to run the boy over in a car as he scrambled to get out of the way.
Forcing him to walk out on a frozen pond and giggling when he crashed into the water.
Kicking him in the stomach and the groin.
Putting a knife to his throat.
Sitting in a car, headlights trained on the boy, and offering him $300 to expose his private parts.
Prodding him to have sex with his family's dog.
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We can only imagine what other, unfilmed tortures they inflicted. There were suggestions that the girls had bullied at least two other students, including a disabled one.
When caught, the 17-year-old, pictured above, said, "We should have erased the video. We were stupid. We'll be smarter after this, or locked behind bars."
The judge in the case was suitably horrified. He said, "If the conduct isn't outrageous enough, the comments afterward make it worse. This is not an empathic or remorseful person from the totality of the evidence."
Both girls were sentenced to juvenile detention, possibly until they turn 21. The judge reasoned that sending the older one to prison (if tried as an adult, she could have faced 80 years) would not accomplish anything good in the formation of her character.
This is almost certainly true.
But.
-----
After reading several newspaper articles about the case, I turned to comments made by readers. A couple of them raised what I thought were good questions.
What, one writer mused, would have happened if it had been two teenage boys tormenting an autistic teenage girl? Would the boys be sent to a juvenile facility or tried as adults? Would their names not end up on a registry of sexual predators?
Another noted that the autistic boy who was the victim was black. What, asked the commenter, would have happened if the races had been reversed? Would two black tormenters who expressed no remorse have been treated so lightly?
I am not so much opposed to the effective second chance -- a juvenile record that may be expunged at age 21 -- as wondering whether it would be available to other teenagers who aren't white girls.
I am not so much opposed to the effective second chance -- a juvenile record that may be expunged at age 21 -- as wondering whether it would be available to other teenagers who aren't white girls.
Was justice served?
Thursday, May 29, 2014
The Dionne Quintuplets
Eighty years ago yesterday, the Dionne quintuplets were born to an impoverished farmer and his wife in a small town in Ontario, Canada.
Together, they weighed about 14 pounds. It was assumed that all would die, but they lived. They were the first known surviving set of quintuplets.
The miracle of their survival was followed by an ordeal of a childhood that they understood fully only in retrospect many years later.
First, the doctor who delivered them installed them in their own small house, a Skinner Box-like environment. They were cared for by nurses who were discouraged from touching the girls. The nurses came and went, and when they moved on, the quintuplets were distressed as if they had lost a mother. The doctor specified a regimen of times to wake, play, eat and sleep. Their mother visited, but they never knew her as their mother, and she often quarreled with the nurses, who didn't want her to touch her daughters. In fact, mother and children never seemed to bond. The quintuplets knew no other children and little about anything outside their small world.
But the world knew them. Ontario controlled the rights to their photographs and prevented their father from making a picture when he attempted to do so. He sometimes sold his autograph for 25 cents.
The quintuplets were featured in magazine articles, books, newsreels and advertising. The province established their home as Quintland, a commercial attraction. Tourists could see them playing at scheduled hours from an observation deck through a piece of gauze. In all, it is estimated that Ontario made $500 million from quintuplet tourism and promotions.
Over the years, three million people visited Quintland. The traffic stopped during World War II, when gas and tires were rationed. At that point their father was granted his oft-stated wish to move the quints home to a large house that Ontario had built across the street from Quintland.
There, too, the quintuplets had a difficult experience. Their other siblings (who eventually numbered seven) and their parents did not like them particularly, and the five girls were treated more harshly and given more household chores than the other children. They were told that there were two families: the five of them and all the rest.
Their brothers and sisters were sent away to school, but the quintuplets completed high school with a few other neighborhood girls across the street from their home in the former Quintland building.
Later, when the remaining quintuplets were in their 60s, they revealed that their mother had beaten them and their father had harrassed them and made sexual advances.
When the quintuplets turned 18, they moved out of the family home, seeking anonymity and peace. Their relationships with their parents never were repaired, and their siblings complained publicly that their stories of harsh treatment at home were false.
Two went into a convent; one left, and the other died. Two trained as nurses, and one studied music. Each received $121,000 when they turned 21. Their father, who had parsimoniously doled out small amounts of their own money to them, resented this.
Three married. All the marriages failed. A second quintuplet died young, alcoholic and alone. When the three remaining quintuplets attended their father's funeral in 1979 after years of no contact with their family, their mother told them they had killed him.
Two of the quintuplets, now 80, remain. In 1995, as a French book was being released with their cooperation, one of them sat for a long interview with a British reporter. Her son (the remaining one of twins) was with her and said she was happy and at peace.
In the newsman's telling, she was angry and regretful at the way she and her sisters were treated, but also thoughtful about her life and generous in her assessment of the adults who had mistreated her in her early years.
The reporter asked what she wished had been different in her life.
"We should have been raised as normal children," she told him.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Kindness and Creeps in the Suburbs
In the last suburban city where I lived, in Northern California, I was not particularly suited. It was the wrong place for me, and eventually my family moved across the country. I have been much happier since.
I still am left with several memories. I share two small ones here.
One is of the city's supermarket, where I shopped just about every week.
Often, I would find a cents-off coupon sitting on a shelf near something I was buying.
Some person in town obviously made it his or her business to clip out discount coupons and place them near the appropriate products all over the grocery store. This went on for years.
This anonymous commitment of time that would benefit only strangers surprised me. It struck me as generous.
In addition, the people who stocked the shelves and worked the cash registers were friendly; the man who ran the produce department often would recommend particular fruits and vegetables and new ways to prepare and serve them.
The same town also had a library that I visited often. Its collection was not large, and usually I searched mostly for new releases. Often, after I had taken a book home, I would find underlined sentences and comments written in the page margins.
Once, when I checked out a book about mathematics, I found the previous library patron had done numerical calculations in the margins. He (I'm pretty sure it was a man) couldn't even take the small effort to pull out a sheet of paper to do his computations.
This too went on for years and was so common that I grew quite familiar with the handwriting.
I have never encountered this phenomenon in any other library I have visited. I found it infuriating. How dare someone damage a community's library with his lazy, self-important musings?
Then one day, when I was searching the regular shelves for some research I was doing, a strange man came up to me and asked for help finding something; apparently he was unfamiliar with the Dewey Decimal System. Basically, he was trying to pick me up. Creepy.
I thought about bringing these concerns to the librarians, but they were a cool bunch and made it pretty clear that they preferred not to be bothered. Over time I went less and less often to the library. Eventually I stopped altogether.
As I said, it was a strange town. The public library had relative well-paid but indifferent librarians, men trolling the stacks looking for women and an ever-increasing number of defaced books.
And yet, in the local supermarket, the lower-paid workers were friendly, and the place was visited regularly by someone who obviously spent several hours each week distributing coupons to save unknown shoppers 25 or 50 cents, here and there, on cans of soup or boxes of cereal. For this supermarket, and particularly the coupon person, I retain a fond affection.
I still don't know what to make of it all.
I still am left with several memories. I share two small ones here.
Often, I would find a cents-off coupon sitting on a shelf near something I was buying.
Some person in town obviously made it his or her business to clip out discount coupons and place them near the appropriate products all over the grocery store. This went on for years.
This anonymous commitment of time that would benefit only strangers surprised me. It struck me as generous.
In addition, the people who stocked the shelves and worked the cash registers were friendly; the man who ran the produce department often would recommend particular fruits and vegetables and new ways to prepare and serve them.
The same town also had a library that I visited often. Its collection was not large, and usually I searched mostly for new releases. Often, after I had taken a book home, I would find underlined sentences and comments written in the page margins.
Once, when I checked out a book about mathematics, I found the previous library patron had done numerical calculations in the margins. He (I'm pretty sure it was a man) couldn't even take the small effort to pull out a sheet of paper to do his computations.This too went on for years and was so common that I grew quite familiar with the handwriting.
I have never encountered this phenomenon in any other library I have visited. I found it infuriating. How dare someone damage a community's library with his lazy, self-important musings?
Then one day, when I was searching the regular shelves for some research I was doing, a strange man came up to me and asked for help finding something; apparently he was unfamiliar with the Dewey Decimal System. Basically, he was trying to pick me up. Creepy.
I thought about bringing these concerns to the librarians, but they were a cool bunch and made it pretty clear that they preferred not to be bothered. Over time I went less and less often to the library. Eventually I stopped altogether.
As I said, it was a strange town. The public library had relative well-paid but indifferent librarians, men trolling the stacks looking for women and an ever-increasing number of defaced books.
And yet, in the local supermarket, the lower-paid workers were friendly, and the place was visited regularly by someone who obviously spent several hours each week distributing coupons to save unknown shoppers 25 or 50 cents, here and there, on cans of soup or boxes of cereal. For this supermarket, and particularly the coupon person, I retain a fond affection.
I still don't know what to make of it all.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
"Redevelopment" in Atlantic City
Below is a picture of Atlantic City, NJ. As you can see, its biggest developments are 12 casino/hotels along the city's boardwalk.
There was hope when gambling was introduced in Atlantic City that the city's decline, which began in the 1950s, would turn around.
So far this has not happened. The casinos send 8 percent of their gross revenues to the state of New Jersey and another 1.25 percent to the Community Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), a state agency that disburses the funds for public and private projects in Atlantic City and elsewhere in the state.
Unfortunately, the casinos are in decline. Revenues dropped from $3.3 billion in 2011 to $2.9 billion in 2012 and likely have continued downward from there.
Casino employment, which peaked at 43,000 in 2006, had dropped to 33,000 by 2013. Most casino workers live outside the city, which had an unemployment rate of 17.8 percent in 2013. The rate of violent crime, which averages 3.1 per 1,000 people statewide, is 19.2 per 1,000 in Atlantic City.
Under the circumstances, it has been difficult to get many of the city's 30 million annual visitors out of the casinos or away from the city's historic boardwalk and into the rest of the city.
In 2013, CRDA presided over the demolition of 45 buildings in Atlantic City, presumably because the buildings were blighted.
The authority has not revealed a master plan for improvement of the city.
Here is a building on Oriental Avenue in Atlantic City, not far from the Revel casino. Revel was built for $2.4 billion in 2012 and went into bankruptcy the next year. Now CRDA says it needs to acquire a large number of properties near Revel for an unspecified redevelopment of the area.
The Oriental Avenue building is owned by a man who inherited it from his parents, who bought it in 1969. He uses the first floor as a piano studio and the office for his piano-tuning business, and he rents the upper floors as apartments.
The building looks to be in good repair and well maintained.
CRDA has been trying since 2012 to acquire the building by eminent domain.
The man is fighting. Last week in court, his lawyer said, "There's no plan. There's no particular thing for which this property is being taken." He called the proposed eminent domain process "condemn first, decide what to do with the property later."
The lawyer for New Jersey said, "This state has recognized that the economic engine of casinos is vital to the success of the state of New Jersey. That's the public purpose here."
In 2007, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that before a city (or, presumably, the CRDA) can seize private property for other private development, it must show "substantial evidence" that the targeted property is blighted.
I don't know what will happen in this case. The individual property doesn't look blighted to me, but, arguably, much of Atlantic City is.
Plus, the state is arguing that it wants the building site for a public purpose, not a private one. Personally, I doubt the CRDA will use the property for a library or a school.
(There have been rumors that CRDA actions have been influenced by politically connected Jerseyans. Given the state's history, such rumors are to be expected. Who knows what is going on in this situation?)
The state's argument that seizing the Oriental Avenue property for the public purpose of helping the "economic engine of casinos" must ring hollow to local residents. After 30 years of funding project after project, CRDA seems not to have had much effect at all on the sad dynamics of Atlantic City.
Monday, May 26, 2014
The Rise and Fall of Atlantic City
In the days before air conditioning and widespread car ownership, it offered ocean swimming, a boardwalk and many amusements. Large hotels were built and filled with vacationers from New York and Philadelphia.
Here is a 1910 photograph.
Hre is another from 1915.
Along the way, the city became famous for many things. In 1921, the first Miss America pageant was held in Atlantic City, which still hosts the event (returning last year after a seven-year hiatus in Las Vegas.)
Here is a photo of the first contestants. The winner was the young woman on the far left.
The city reached its popular zenith in the 1920s, when Prohibition seems never to have been enforced locally. This period has been the subject of a popular HBO television program, Boardwalk Empire, featuring Steve Buscemi as a character modeled on a local crime boss of the time.
The board game, Monopoly, released in 1935, features properties with street names taken from streets in Atlantic City (although purists remind us that Marven Gardens in Atlantic City is misspelled as Marvin Gardens in the game.)
During World War II, some of the city's large hotels were used to house service members training for duty overseas.
After the war, things changed. More people drove cars, and rail lines didn't deliver as many tourists for summer vacations. Atlantic City started a long decline. By the 1970s it was so dilapidated that New Jersey voters approved a measure to allowing gambling in the city. At the time, the only legal gambling in the United States was in the state of Nevada.
The first resort, shown below, opened in 1978, and others followed.
Unfortunately there were no barriers to entry for other states and Indian reservations, which also craved taxes from gambling revenues. Now casinos are located in most states, and lottery games are offered in all but six states. Atlantic City has seen new competition arise particularly in neighboring states Delaware and Pennsylvania; a planned casino in southern New York state is expected to offer competition for gamblers from northern New Jersey.
Nevada's casinos responded to the competition by offering entertainment, luxury shopping and glitzy themed hotels and resorts. In the middle of a desert, Las Vegas still draws crowds.
By contrast, Atlantic City had developed a reputation for attracting more downscale gamblers, people who came into Atlantic City by the busload, disappeared into the giant casinos and came back out only to catch buses back home. There are other attractions -- a high-end mall, an outlet mall, several museums, an acquarium -- but the city is known mainly for its casinos and for urban decay.
While Atlantic City's casinos more than 30,000 workers, this doesn't seem to have helped the city itself. The population, which peaked at near 70,000 in the 1920s and 1930s, was under 40,000 by the time of the 2010 census. Most casino workers live outside Atlantic City. The city's population, now majority minority, sends its children to schools whose results are among the worst in the state.
The last of the 11 casinos in Atlantic City, the Revel, opened in 2012. It has almost 2,000 rooms, live music shows and a fancy spa. The cost to develop the property was $2.4 billion.
 |
| Revel |
The current line is that the number of casinos in Atlantic City needs to be "right-sized." In a recent earnings call, the CEO of Caesars Entertainment said its Atlantic City property had been the company's most challenging property for several years. Now Caesars is spending $125 million to build a convention center in the city in hopes of increasing midweek traffic.
The city's boardwalk and beach, which attracted so many tourists in early years, were not emphasized as Atlantic City set out to attract gamblers. Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Jersey shore hard in 2012, didn't help. Although damage was less than in other Shore towns and repairs were completed swiftly, the broader public held the impression that the city's boardwalk and beaches were in worse shape and for longer than was the case.
A New Jersey agency, the Casino Reinvestment Development Agency, is setting out to revitalize Atlantic City. More on that tomorrow.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
A Sad Story and the First Amendment
A New Jersey appeals court has waded deep into a family matter, upholding a lower court's order that a woman cannot post what she likes on Facebook and other blogs.
Interesting case. Sad story.
The woman is nutty. After her divorce, she lost custody of her two young children. She kidnapped them in 2011 and was stopped when she tried to take them across the border into Canada. Kidnapping charges were dropped on the condition that she seek psychiatric therapy.
She was evaluated as bipolar but not dangerous to herself or others. She did not seek therapy.
I'm a little surprised that the kidnapping charge was not reinstated when the woman failed to live up to the terms of her agreement. Kidnapping is a serious state and federal offense with appropriately serious consequences. A dropped charge with conditions is a generous deal.
But the charge was not reinstated.
What the woman did next was take to the internet. Her posts were said to include references to Jeffrey Dahmer, Satan and Adolph Hitler. She also discussed her ex-husband and children. He objected.
An attorney for the state of New Jersey took her to court and asked that she be banned from blogging about her family. A judge agreed, and she was put on five years' probation with the condition that she stop blogging about her relatives.
She didn't stop. What she did was to refer to her ex-husband and children as "Camelot" in 161 blog and Facebook posts. She admitted to doing this in an interview with her probation officer.
The state went after her again.
She claimed that the ban was overly vague, which seems untrue, and that it restricted her First Amendment rights, which seems clearly to be true.
The state appeals court ruled against her. It said she was limited only from writing about her family and that the reason was to protect her children. Therefore, the court ruled, the gag order was constitutional.
Obviously her ex-husband is distressed. Obviously he is concerned about their children. I'd bet he already has a restraining order to keep her away from them, which makes perfect sense even if she has been found not to represent a danger to other people.
But I think he is going to have to find another way to keep her ravings away from the children's eyes and prepare himself to explain, probably again and again, that when she writes it is her mental disease speaking.
The First Amendment guarantees free speech to everyone. There is no carve-out to exclude crazy people who are not dangerous and do not incite others to commit harm.
If the ex-husband can establish that the woman presents a physical danger to her children, there are other courses of action that he can and should pursue.
But if this nutty, troubled woman takes her case into the federal court system on First Amendment grounds, I don't see any way New Jersey can win.
Interesting case. Sad story.
The woman is nutty. After her divorce, she lost custody of her two young children. She kidnapped them in 2011 and was stopped when she tried to take them across the border into Canada. Kidnapping charges were dropped on the condition that she seek psychiatric therapy.
She was evaluated as bipolar but not dangerous to herself or others. She did not seek therapy.
I'm a little surprised that the kidnapping charge was not reinstated when the woman failed to live up to the terms of her agreement. Kidnapping is a serious state and federal offense with appropriately serious consequences. A dropped charge with conditions is a generous deal.
But the charge was not reinstated.
What the woman did next was take to the internet. Her posts were said to include references to Jeffrey Dahmer, Satan and Adolph Hitler. She also discussed her ex-husband and children. He objected.
An attorney for the state of New Jersey took her to court and asked that she be banned from blogging about her family. A judge agreed, and she was put on five years' probation with the condition that she stop blogging about her relatives.
She didn't stop. What she did was to refer to her ex-husband and children as "Camelot" in 161 blog and Facebook posts. She admitted to doing this in an interview with her probation officer.
The state went after her again.
She claimed that the ban was overly vague, which seems untrue, and that it restricted her First Amendment rights, which seems clearly to be true.
The state appeals court ruled against her. It said she was limited only from writing about her family and that the reason was to protect her children. Therefore, the court ruled, the gag order was constitutional.
Obviously her ex-husband is distressed. Obviously he is concerned about their children. I'd bet he already has a restraining order to keep her away from them, which makes perfect sense even if she has been found not to represent a danger to other people.
But I think he is going to have to find another way to keep her ravings away from the children's eyes and prepare himself to explain, probably again and again, that when she writes it is her mental disease speaking.
The First Amendment guarantees free speech to everyone. There is no carve-out to exclude crazy people who are not dangerous and do not incite others to commit harm.
If the ex-husband can establish that the woman presents a physical danger to her children, there are other courses of action that he can and should pursue.
But if this nutty, troubled woman takes her case into the federal court system on First Amendment grounds, I don't see any way New Jersey can win.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Scary Men in Underpants
What delicate and vulnerable people we have become.
In February, a statue titled Sleepwalker, by artist Tony Matelli, was placed in a prominent spot on the campus of Wellesley College, a women's school. Here is a picture.
It is a fiberglass rendering of a slight and slightly paunchy guy in underpants who is walking in his sleep.
I have not had a chance to see the thing in situ, but my guess is that if a real sleepwalking man were to awaken suddenly and and find himself wandering in his underwear on a women's college campus, he would feel frightened, embarrassed and quite eager to get the heck out of there.
But I seem to have missed something. Wellesley students were horrified.
Shortly after the statue went up, students began circulating a petition. It says this:
"This highly lifelike sculpture has, within a few hours of its outdoor installation, become a source of apprehension, fear and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for many members of our campus community."
("Triggering," or causing upset, is a big topic for student activists these days. There are people who want professors to issue "trigger warnings" before assigning material that may distress students. Works ranging from The Merchant of Venice to Mrs. Dalloway have been put forth as needing trigger warnings. )
But back to Wellesley. In short order, more than 500 students signed the anti-statue petition, and recent reports said the number of signatures had increased to almost 1,000.
One student who signed the petition said, "It sort of feels like the big point here is that students' emotions to the statue are being pushed aside in favor of having a discussion about art."
Break out the smelling salts. The Wellesley women are suffering cases of the vapors. How dare a college put a discussion of art ahead of students' FEELINGS?
Fortunately, some of the grownups on campus are acting a little more, well, grown up.
The director of the campus museum said, "I love the idea of art escaping the museum and muddling the line between what we expect to be inside (art) and what we expect to be outside (life)."
Matelli's statue may not be revered hundreds of years from now, but it is scheduled to stay in its place on the Wellesley campus only until July.
Interestingly, vandals hurled yellow paint on Sleepwalking and several other statues a few days ago.
So much for high-minded discussions about art.
In fact, at the earlier levels of education, people also object to a man in underwear. I speak, of course, of ------------ Captain Underpants.
A group of librarians, booksellers and avid readers keeps a list of efforts to remove certain books from the shelves of libraries and bookstores.
For the last two years, the most challenged book (actually a series) in the United States has been, of all things, Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey.
Here is a picture of Captain Underpants.
In real life, according to the books, he is a mean elementary school principal.
Here are George Beard and Harold Hutchins, fourth graders at the same school.
George and Harold are pranksters who make up stories in which they hypnotize the principal, transforming him into Captain Underpants, a caped crusader. Other characters in the books are Dr. Diaper, the Talking Toilets and Bionic Booger Boy.
According to the Banned Book Week organization, people who don't like Captain Underpants lodge complaints ranging from "offensive language" to "unsuited for age group" to "violence."
Maybe these complainers would be happier if the books came in plain brown wrappers with trigger warnings for seven-year-old boys.
"Parents need to know that this book is full of gross bathroom humor that many kids find fun. It may be a good fit for reluctant readers," (aka boys) "but beware: It's the start of a huge series, and if your kids get hooked, they might be stuck on gross-out humor for a while. Cartoon-style pictures enhance over-the-top jokes and fast-paced action."
To be fair, the target demo for Captain Underpants probably does not overlap that for Anne of Green Gables, whose readers are no doubt more likely to end up at Wellesley College.
But why should it? The books are for young boys who, to the apparent distress of many adults, really dig potty humor.
More than 70 million Captain Underpants books have been sold, which I think is a good thing. I believe reading is good for children and even better if they enjoy the books they are consuming.
Sometimes it seems as if certain scolds are annoyed at the thought that somebody, somewhere, might be having a little fun.
Update
One year after this post, the Sleepwalker moved to the popular Highline Park in Manhattan's Chelsea district, where his presence did not give offense and instead inspired cellphone pictures and selfies.
In February, a statue titled Sleepwalker, by artist Tony Matelli, was placed in a prominent spot on the campus of Wellesley College, a women's school. Here is a picture.
It is a fiberglass rendering of a slight and slightly paunchy guy in underpants who is walking in his sleep.
I have not had a chance to see the thing in situ, but my guess is that if a real sleepwalking man were to awaken suddenly and and find himself wandering in his underwear on a women's college campus, he would feel frightened, embarrassed and quite eager to get the heck out of there.
But I seem to have missed something. Wellesley students were horrified.
Shortly after the statue went up, students began circulating a petition. It says this:
"This highly lifelike sculpture has, within a few hours of its outdoor installation, become a source of apprehension, fear and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for many members of our campus community."
("Triggering," or causing upset, is a big topic for student activists these days. There are people who want professors to issue "trigger warnings" before assigning material that may distress students. Works ranging from The Merchant of Venice to Mrs. Dalloway have been put forth as needing trigger warnings. )
But back to Wellesley. In short order, more than 500 students signed the anti-statue petition, and recent reports said the number of signatures had increased to almost 1,000.
One student who signed the petition said, "It sort of feels like the big point here is that students' emotions to the statue are being pushed aside in favor of having a discussion about art."
Break out the smelling salts. The Wellesley women are suffering cases of the vapors. How dare a college put a discussion of art ahead of students' FEELINGS?
Fortunately, some of the grownups on campus are acting a little more, well, grown up.
The director of the campus museum said, "I love the idea of art escaping the museum and muddling the line between what we expect to be inside (art) and what we expect to be outside (life)."
Matelli's statue may not be revered hundreds of years from now, but it is scheduled to stay in its place on the Wellesley campus only until July.
Interestingly, vandals hurled yellow paint on Sleepwalking and several other statues a few days ago.
So much for high-minded discussions about art.
In fact, at the earlier levels of education, people also object to a man in underwear. I speak, of course, of ------------ Captain Underpants.
A group of librarians, booksellers and avid readers keeps a list of efforts to remove certain books from the shelves of libraries and bookstores.
For the last two years, the most challenged book (actually a series) in the United States has been, of all things, Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey.
In real life, according to the books, he is a mean elementary school principal.
Here are George Beard and Harold Hutchins, fourth graders at the same school.
According to the Banned Book Week organization, people who don't like Captain Underpants lodge complaints ranging from "offensive language" to "unsuited for age group" to "violence."
Maybe these complainers would be happier if the books came in plain brown wrappers with trigger warnings for seven-year-old boys.
Another group, Common Sense Media, which reviews children's books, gave a rather sniffy report on the first book in the series, saying this:
"Parents need to know that this book is full of gross bathroom humor that many kids find fun. It may be a good fit for reluctant readers," (aka boys) "but beware: It's the start of a huge series, and if your kids get hooked, they might be stuck on gross-out humor for a while. Cartoon-style pictures enhance over-the-top jokes and fast-paced action."
Common Sense gave Captain Underpants a grudging rating of three on a scale of five. Parents and children were more generous, giving it a four.
To be fair, the target demo for Captain Underpants probably does not overlap that for Anne of Green Gables, whose readers are no doubt more likely to end up at Wellesley College.
But why should it? The books are for young boys who, to the apparent distress of many adults, really dig potty humor.
More than 70 million Captain Underpants books have been sold, which I think is a good thing. I believe reading is good for children and even better if they enjoy the books they are consuming.
Sometimes it seems as if certain scolds are annoyed at the thought that somebody, somewhere, might be having a little fun.
Update
One year after this post, the Sleepwalker moved to the popular Highline Park in Manhattan's Chelsea district, where his presence did not give offense and instead inspired cellphone pictures and selfies.
Friday, May 23, 2014
The Mommy Tax and the Daddy Bonus
The U.S. Census Bureau collects vast amounts of data every 10 years. Once released, this trove is data-mined to develop information released in reports over subsequent years.
One of the latest ones comes from the City University of New York. Its title, "The 'Mommy Tax' and the 'Daddy Bonus'" reported a conclusion that confused researchers: Men in New York with children make more money than women with children and more than childless women and childless men.Women, on the other hand, faced a penalty for being mothers. Across all races and education levels, women's income was lowered with each child born into their families.
CUNY's social psychologists were gobsmacked. How could this possibly be, they wondered.
Their immediate conjecture was that it was the fault of employers who assumed that men with children were more warm and positive.
The conclusion seemed to be that if you gave an underachieving guy a couple of kids, his income would skyrocket immediately.
This of course is ridiculous. It makes a common scientific error, which is to confuse correlation with causation.
I am pretty sure I could have saved these researchers a lot of time and money. Here is why male fathers make more money: Women.
Women, at least the sensible ones, are careful about the fathers of their babies. Women favor dependable men of good character who will be supportive in the joint project of raising children.
Likewise, employers look for dependable people of good character who work well with colleagues to achieve common goals. Such people are more likely to get promotions and bumps in pay.
(Some skeptics say say that women seek to marry men who make lots of money. We all have known women who have married for money and men who have married for beauty, and we also have seen those marriages fail at greater than average rates. Good character is really, really important.)
As for the "mommy tax," well there are the facts of nature. Pregnancy, breast-feeding through the early months when babies wake at all hours of the night and post-partum depression all fall to women and cannot be outsourced even to the most committed fathers.
Accordingly, parents who are doing it right set a simple goal -- "what is best for all of us."
Often the higher earner concentrates on career while the lower earner works part-time or not at all when children are young. It is more traditional for men to take the job of bringing in the money (which may motivate them to excel at work in the interest of earning more), but I have seen families where the mothers take the larger financial responsibility and the fathers manage the home duties. It works fine either way as long as the parents agree on the goals.
Again, raising children is the most important thing a couple can do, and children whose lives go well are essential for parental contentment in later years. The old saying is true: You are only as happy as your unhappiest child.
Why do I have to explain these things?
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
A Cannes Report
Okay, so I didn't go to this year's Cannes Film Festival, which ended a couple days ago. That doesn't mean I can't read about it and report what I find.
Here goes:
At least three movies shown at the festival got good reviews and a lot of interest. You may want keep an eye out for their releases in this country.
First is Foxcatcher, from Bennett Miller, who brought us Capote and Moneyball. It's the story of a rich man (played serious by Steve Carell with a fake nose) who gets involved in the development of America's Olympic wrestling team with Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo. Seduction, betrayal, murder, described as an American horror. Crowds loved it.
Second is Maps to the Stars, yet another satire about Hollywood, this one the story of a twisted and screwed-up Hollywood acting family.
Directed by David Cronenberg (he of 2012's Cosmopolis) and starring Robert Pattinson, Carrie Fisher, Julianne Moore and John Cusack, among others.
Film industry people get tetchy about these sorts of movies, but I think they are used to them.
Third is Mr. Turner, starring Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter movies) as the deeply conflicted 19th century British painter JMW Turner.
Brits love it. "Every scene...expertly managed,... every performance given with intelligence and love... another triumph for (director) Mike Lee and for Timothy Spall," said the Guardian newspaper.
Then there were two movies that got a lot of attention, albeit mixed.
Grace of Monaco
About Grace Kelly, the American film star who met her husband, Prince Rainier III, at the Cannes festival in 1955. This was a natural choice to open this year's festival.
Hopes were high. The director, Olivier Dahan, won great praise for La Vie en Rose in 2007. Nicole Kidman stars as Grace and Tim Roth (?) as the prince. The movie is set in 1962 and apparently exaggerates Grace's role in a battle between Monaco and France's Charles De Gaulle about taxes.
Unfortunately, just about everybody hates the picture. The Hollywood Reporter called it "a stale wedding cake of pomp and privilege." The Los Angeles Times described the script as "agonizingly airless and contrived." And those were some of the generous reviews.
Grace's children, the prince and princesses of Monaco, insist it is pure fiction. Harvey Weinstein, whose company is to distribute it in the United States, says it is not the film he was told to expect.
This sounds like one to miss.
Welcome to New York Like most French releases of the last 30 years, this one stars Gerard Depardieu. He's said to be very good in it. Here he plays George Devereaux in a not-thinly-veiled fictionalization of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal story three years ago.The film starts with 30 explicit minutes of orgiastic excess, moves on to Devereaux raping a hotel maid and continues through his capture and house arrest in New York with his wife, played by Jacqueline Bisset.
According to Variety, director Abel Ferrara sees Devereaux/DSK as "a man of large, insatiable appetites he is at a loss to control."
Americans who liked Wolf of Wall Street no doubt will enjoy this movie. Others will have to consider how much of the ever beefier Depardieu they really want to see.
Angry Iranians
This isn't a film, but rather an incident that makes an interesting counterpoint to the French film discussed above. It concerns the photo below.
The picture shows Iran's biggest film star, Leila Hatami, greeting Gilles Jacob, 83, the head of the Cannes festival in a red-carpet moment. (Red carpets are big photographic moments everywhere these days, alas.) Ms. Hatami was a member of the festival's jury this year.
Notice that she is kissing Jacob on the cheek, in the French manner. This is not the Iranian manner, however.
The Iranian deputy culture minister said this presented a "bad image of Iranian women" that demeaned their "credibility and chastity."
He also objected her outfit, which left her neck uncovered "in violation of the country's religious beliefs."
Iran's Young Journalists' Club also piled on, noting that Hatami had extended her hand to Jacob, calling the touching of hands "unconventional and improper behavior."
I am struck at what a broad range of what can be shown and seen there is around the world these days.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Grandma's Celebrity Gossip
Our guest columnist's take on matters of home decor.
I mentioned to my brother that I'd like to replace the wallpaper in my bedroom, and my niece Robin -- I love her, but a bit of a kochleffl -- shows up to redecorate my entire condo with the help of friend named Lily Edmonds. (Trust me, it was Leah Edelstein before she changed it.)
Lily is an expert in Feng Shui, having decorated the homes of Cher, Elton John and a Mr. Meatloaf.
As near as I could figure out, Feng Shui is some kind of cockamamie religion where the ghosts of dead Chinese people wander through your house and argue about where to put your coffee table.
If I follow Lily's suggestions, I was told, I will have great success and luck in life. "Listen," I said, "at my age the only success I need is finding my way in the dark to the bathroom."
First thing Lily says is I should paint my front door red for good luck. Every unit in my building has a white door. So all of a sudden I'm running a bordello?
In the living room she liked the placement of my sofa and TV, but such a kvitch she gave at the painting of Mitzi, our Chihuahua, over Sid's leather chair.
"No sad pictures," she scolded.
"What sad?" I said The dog's dressed in a pink tutu with a tiara, and long, full life she lived. But no! Portraits of a single person or pet have to be placed in groups. It's a rule.
In my kitchen, the direction of the stove knobs she didn't like, and by the time we hit the bedroom, I'd had enough. My antique four-poster she didn't like because from the box springs she got "negative energy."
That did it. A lovely bed with a hand-made quilt and Belgian lace that I shared with my Sidney for over 40 years -- may he rest in peace -- is negative energy? Feh! When the Nazis break down your door and drag you to the freight yard and ship you to Treblinka, now that's negative energy. Krich nit arein in di dayner, balma-lucha!
I've said enough already.
 |
| Grandma |
I mentioned to my brother that I'd like to replace the wallpaper in my bedroom, and my niece Robin -- I love her, but a bit of a kochleffl -- shows up to redecorate my entire condo with the help of friend named Lily Edmonds. (Trust me, it was Leah Edelstein before she changed it.)
Lily is an expert in Feng Shui, having decorated the homes of Cher, Elton John and a Mr. Meatloaf.
As near as I could figure out, Feng Shui is some kind of cockamamie religion where the ghosts of dead Chinese people wander through your house and argue about where to put your coffee table.
If I follow Lily's suggestions, I was told, I will have great success and luck in life. "Listen," I said, "at my age the only success I need is finding my way in the dark to the bathroom."
First thing Lily says is I should paint my front door red for good luck. Every unit in my building has a white door. So all of a sudden I'm running a bordello?
In the living room she liked the placement of my sofa and TV, but such a kvitch she gave at the painting of Mitzi, our Chihuahua, over Sid's leather chair.
"No sad pictures," she scolded.
"What sad?" I said The dog's dressed in a pink tutu with a tiara, and long, full life she lived. But no! Portraits of a single person or pet have to be placed in groups. It's a rule.
In my kitchen, the direction of the stove knobs she didn't like, and by the time we hit the bedroom, I'd had enough. My antique four-poster she didn't like because from the box springs she got "negative energy."
That did it. A lovely bed with a hand-made quilt and Belgian lace that I shared with my Sidney for over 40 years -- may he rest in peace -- is negative energy? Feh! When the Nazis break down your door and drag you to the freight yard and ship you to Treblinka, now that's negative energy. Krich nit arein in di dayner, balma-lucha!
I've said enough already.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Jill Abramson's Firing
For 10 days now, journalists inside the New York Times and their friends have been discussing, obsessively, the public firing of Jill Abramson, the paper's executive editor. After reading and listening to reports about the situation, I offer my thoughts.
1. Being a change agent is risky.
Abramson apparently got in trouble because she wanted to bring in a new digital editor at the same staff level as her second in command, Managing Editor Dean Baquet. Baquet went over her head to the Times' squishy and pliable publisher/chairman, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and told him, in effect, to choose between the two of them. Sulzberger chose Baquet.
A few days later, in Paris, the editor of Le Monde (the French equivalent of the Times) was pushed out after a number of top editors resigned over her plans to refocus on the paper's digital product. The editor, Natalie Nougayrede, had been in her job less than a year.
Before taking her job less than three years ago, Abramson spent six months learning about and evaluating the Times digital efforts. She, like Nougayrede, realized that change, big change, is the only path to survival for traditional newspapers.
Change is not easy in bureaucracies like big newspapers. People are political; they guard their turf. When they feel threatened, the knives come out.
2. Is the New York Times biased against women? Probably yes.
Why else would the Times' own stories about Abramson's firing discuss seriously whether she was a bitch and a bossy woman? Why would the publisher go out of his way to make such a public spectacle of his decision to fire her?
Before she became executive editor, Abramson was the paper's managing editor for eight years. Before that, she was chief of the powerful D.C. bureau.
If Abramson was hell on wheels, as we now hear her described, it must have been apparent many years ago. Leopards, spots. Why did she keep getting promotions if Sulzberger didn't like her management style?
It has been more than 25 years since the Times was sued by 550 women employees over unequal pay, assignments and promotions. In 1978, the newspaper settled with a payment of $350,000 and a promise to set up an affirmative action plan.
The equal-pay thing apparently hadn't been worked out by the time Abramson began moving up the ranks, however. Not surprisingly, she was dismayed to learn that she was being paid about as much as men several editorial levels below her.
Here's another thing. The last newspaper where I worked was a good one. By my count, seven of my colleagues were hired away by the Times. All were men. An eighth, a woman, joined the paper several years later, after publication of her second well-received book. Maybe the male/female ratio was a coincidence, or maybe all the really good journalists were men. Who knows?
(This is not sour grapes on my part, by the way. I never sought work at the Times, and I left my own job, happily, for graduate school.)
There of course are talented women at the Times. But several were quoted, anonymously, this week as saying they believed their long-term prospects at the paper were limited.
In some cases, women who left the paper have seen their careers take off after they have gone elsewhere. Texas columnist Molly Ivins was one notable example.
3. Are all newspapers biased against women? Probably no.
When Abramson was made executive editor in New York in 2011, the huzzahs were deafening. It was as if she had cracked the glass ceiling for newswomen everywhere for the first time ever. In fact, the significance was mostly at one New York paper.
Here are a few women who took top jobs at newspapers -- and held them for many years -- long before Abramson's brief tenure:
Sandra Mims Rowe, editor of the Portland Oregonian, 1993-2010. During this period, the paper
won five Pulitzers, pretty good for a regional daily with a far smaller staff than the Times.
Geneva Overholser, editor of the Des Moines Register, 1989-1997.
Julia Wallace, editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2002-2010; now overseeing 12
newspapers, three radio stations and other digital media for Cox Media Group.
Amanda Bennett, editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader, 2001-2003; editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, 2003 to 2006; executive editor at Bloomberg News, 2006-2013.
Janet Chusmir, executive editor of the Miami Herald, 1987-1990 (when she died suddenly at
the age of 60).
Tonnie Katz, editor of the Orange County Register, 1992-2002.
There are many other examples, including the Gannett newspaper chain's hiring and promoting many female editors and publishers starting in the early 1980s.
You get the idea.
4. It's a tempest in a teapot.
I read several newspapers daily, including the Times. It does some excellent work, but I get the impression sometimes that its reporters and editors talk mostly to each other and that coverage is aimed at their own in-group's interests.
The nonstop conversations about Abramson's firing are an example of this.
Most of us understand that getting out and listening to other people is a good idea. Maybe, with time, the people at the Times will figure this out.
1. Being a change agent is risky.
 |
| Jill Abramson |
Abramson apparently got in trouble because she wanted to bring in a new digital editor at the same staff level as her second in command, Managing Editor Dean Baquet. Baquet went over her head to the Times' squishy and pliable publisher/chairman, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and told him, in effect, to choose between the two of them. Sulzberger chose Baquet.
 |
| Natalie Nougayrede |
A few days later, in Paris, the editor of Le Monde (the French equivalent of the Times) was pushed out after a number of top editors resigned over her plans to refocus on the paper's digital product. The editor, Natalie Nougayrede, had been in her job less than a year.
Before taking her job less than three years ago, Abramson spent six months learning about and evaluating the Times digital efforts. She, like Nougayrede, realized that change, big change, is the only path to survival for traditional newspapers.
Change is not easy in bureaucracies like big newspapers. People are political; they guard their turf. When they feel threatened, the knives come out.
2. Is the New York Times biased against women? Probably yes.
Why else would the Times' own stories about Abramson's firing discuss seriously whether she was a bitch and a bossy woman? Why would the publisher go out of his way to make such a public spectacle of his decision to fire her?
Before she became executive editor, Abramson was the paper's managing editor for eight years. Before that, she was chief of the powerful D.C. bureau.
If Abramson was hell on wheels, as we now hear her described, it must have been apparent many years ago. Leopards, spots. Why did she keep getting promotions if Sulzberger didn't like her management style?
It has been more than 25 years since the Times was sued by 550 women employees over unequal pay, assignments and promotions. In 1978, the newspaper settled with a payment of $350,000 and a promise to set up an affirmative action plan.
The equal-pay thing apparently hadn't been worked out by the time Abramson began moving up the ranks, however. Not surprisingly, she was dismayed to learn that she was being paid about as much as men several editorial levels below her.
Here's another thing. The last newspaper where I worked was a good one. By my count, seven of my colleagues were hired away by the Times. All were men. An eighth, a woman, joined the paper several years later, after publication of her second well-received book. Maybe the male/female ratio was a coincidence, or maybe all the really good journalists were men. Who knows?
(This is not sour grapes on my part, by the way. I never sought work at the Times, and I left my own job, happily, for graduate school.)
There of course are talented women at the Times. But several were quoted, anonymously, this week as saying they believed their long-term prospects at the paper were limited.
In some cases, women who left the paper have seen their careers take off after they have gone elsewhere. Texas columnist Molly Ivins was one notable example.
3. Are all newspapers biased against women? Probably no.
When Abramson was made executive editor in New York in 2011, the huzzahs were deafening. It was as if she had cracked the glass ceiling for newswomen everywhere for the first time ever. In fact, the significance was mostly at one New York paper.
Here are a few women who took top jobs at newspapers -- and held them for many years -- long before Abramson's brief tenure:
Sandra Mims Rowe, editor of the Portland Oregonian, 1993-2010. During this period, the paper
won five Pulitzers, pretty good for a regional daily with a far smaller staff than the Times.
Geneva Overholser, editor of the Des Moines Register, 1989-1997.
Julia Wallace, editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2002-2010; now overseeing 12
newspapers, three radio stations and other digital media for Cox Media Group.
Amanda Bennett, editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader, 2001-2003; editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, 2003 to 2006; executive editor at Bloomberg News, 2006-2013.
Janet Chusmir, executive editor of the Miami Herald, 1987-1990 (when she died suddenly at
the age of 60).
Tonnie Katz, editor of the Orange County Register, 1992-2002.
There are many other examples, including the Gannett newspaper chain's hiring and promoting many female editors and publishers starting in the early 1980s.
You get the idea.
4. It's a tempest in a teapot.
I read several newspapers daily, including the Times. It does some excellent work, but I get the impression sometimes that its reporters and editors talk mostly to each other and that coverage is aimed at their own in-group's interests.
The nonstop conversations about Abramson's firing are an example of this.
Most of us understand that getting out and listening to other people is a good idea. Maybe, with time, the people at the Times will figure this out.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Feed That Meter!
If you park regularly on metered streets or in public parking lots, you probably have noticed things have been changing in recent years. Here are some trends:
Higher Rates
Cities seem to be raising rates generally. Metered street parking now costs $6.50 an hour in Chicago, $5.00 in Manhattan, us much as $6.00 in San Francisco and $4.00 in Seattle. Parking in St. Louis is a relative bargain at 75 cents an hour.
This does not mean you need to carry a roll of quarters in your pocket. Many cities thoughtfully have converted their parking meters and lots to accept credit card payments.
In addition, some cities have moved to seven-day meter collection and longer hours of collection for each day.
Higher Fines
Cities have also been raising revenues by increasing the fines assessed for parking violations.
An expired meter citation in Chicago now carries a $65 fine.
New York's fine is $65 (perhaps $75, depending on new state charges: see below). The same amount is charged for feeding meters to prolong stays and for parking longer than the posted time limit at nonfunctioning meters.
San Francisco's meter fines range from $55 in neighborhoods to $65, or perhaps $72, downtown; cities don't make it easy to research these things.
State Participation
Two big state governments also have taken an entrepreneurial approach, cutting themselves in on the parking ticket action.
In 2010, California passed a state surcharge of $12.50 for each parking violation.
A New York State Criminal Justice Surcharge that started at $12.50 per parking ticket was increased to $15 and then, last fall, to $25.
The Chicago Experiment
In 2008, Chicago outsourced its meter maintenance, collections and enforcement to a consortium of investors led by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners. Chicago got $1.15 billion, and the new group got the right to operate the city's parking system for 75 years.
The Morgan Stanley people made parking more efficient. They raised parking rates, repaired broken meters and beefed up enforcement, which meant issuing many more tickets. Chicagoans were not delighted with these improvements.
The next year, the city's Office of the Inspector General re-examined Chicago's outsourcing contract and concluded that the city should have held out for at least $1 billion more.
In New York City, where then-mayor Michael Bloomberg was considering a similar parking contract, the Chicago experience seemed to dampen local support for the plan.
Opposition in Los Angeles
Last year, an aggrieved Los Angeles man went public with the story of how a $63 parking fine turned into a debt of $175. First the city doubled the fine when it was not paid within two weeks, then it assessed a delinquent fee of $28 and finally a collection fee of $21. (The city also charges an extra $2 to those who use the internet to pay fines with their credit cards.)
An organization calling itself the Los Angeles Parking Freedom Initiative now is circulating an online petition demanding reform of the city's parking regulations. One recent signer complained of having paid $738 in parking fines within 12 months of moving to the city.
Detroit Opportunity
If bankrupt Detroit can adopt some basic efficiencies, it may have a chance to turn a profit, as other cities do, on parking enforcement. Currently half the city's parking meters, like many of its street lights, are not functioning at any given time.
The city's expired-meter fine is $30, but its cost to collect parking fines is $32 for each violation. Records are said to be poorly kept, with some unpaid fines dating back as long as 10 years, past the statute of limitations. No one seems to know how many, if any, overdue fines can be collected.
Still, 70 percent of parking violations are issued to cars from outside the city, and municipalities generally find money collected from out-of-towners is more popular than levies on local residents.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
California Burning
Fire season has begun early in California this year.
In the last week, a series of blazes in San Diego County has blackened almost 20,000 acres. More than 120,000 people were evacuated from their homes, including 8,400 service personnel from Camp Pendleton. Many houses were burned. Worse, the charred body of one person was found in the ashes of a transient camp in Carlsbad.
Even before those fires, by May 10, the number of fires in 2014 was nearly double the five-year average. Weather.com reports that 2013 was the driest year ever in California, where records have been kept since 1895. Snowpack in the Sierra stands at 30 percent of normal.
Still, dry weather in itself does not cause fires. One blaze, now called the Bernardo Fire, is believed to have been started by a spark made by a backhoe digging trenches; that accounted for 1,500 acres.
But most of the fires seem to have been started by arsonists. Escondido police have arrested two young men, aged 17 and 19, for starting two small fires and possibly others. A 57-year-old man in Oceanside was taken into custody after witnesses saw him throwing kindling on another fire that burned 105 acres.
Less than a week earlier, in Northern California, 10 small fires were set in the town of Novato. In one case, a wreath on a front door was set alight, and in another a garage burned and its owner was hospitalized for smoke inhalation after trying to put out the fire.
A Novato police officer said later that "the time frame, close proximity and common sense would lean you toward suspecting that it's the same person" who set all 10 fires.
During the same period, five fires were set in Walnut Creek, a city in the East Bay area. Police there also suspect a single arsonist.
Arson is a curious crime. It is difficult to understand what benefit a person derives from burning homes and landscape and endangering people's lives. Police speculate that arsonists see themselves as lacking power. The theory is that setting fires, to them, offers a sense of accomplishment.
Pathetic, when you think about it.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Nature Wants Your House Back
 |
| Not my house. At least, not yet. |
Homeownership is about nothing if not vigilance.
When you buy a house, the bank wants its mortgage payments and the county its property taxes.
These are minor matters in the larger scheme, however. The real challenge is this: Nature wants your house back. Over the long term, nature will win.
Some years back, the Significant Other and I bought a newly built house.
The first time a big rain blew through, water pushed under the sill of a slider door and left a puddle on the living room floor. I ordered a piece of lumber cut to fit the space, nailed it in and caulked it all around.
Then another big windstorm came along and ripped a bunch of shingles off the roof. I called a roofer and had them replaced.
Next, a couple of skunks dug their way under the house one night. They got in a fight, and one of them died. I called a pest control company to remove the carcass and a handyman to build a barrier at the skunks' access point.
I planted climbing hydrangeas that grew so well they started covering the windows. I cut the hydrangeas back; they returned the next year. I applied herbicide; two years, later the hydrangeas returned again. As usual, nature had won.
Nature owns the world. We humans are just squatters.
I think about this sometimes, like when I see pictures of Detroit houses whose owners have moved on.
In fact, it happens all over the country. Here is a house that nature is reclaiming in Aberdeen, N.J.
And here is a house in the American South that is being swallowed by kudzu.
Below is a pioneer homestead cabin built in 1906 and abandoned during the Great Depression. Structures like these, all rendered unlivable, dot the prairies, the Dakotas, Montana and portions of Canada.
Nature has won, and humans, knowing their defeat, cannot muster the energy to tear down the little that remains.
No matter. In time, nature will see to that.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Summer Blockbusters
The summer season of action movies kicks off a week from tomorrow.
The film Jaws has been credited with starting the summer blockbuster trend. Released in 1975, it featured an enormous shark that plagued a small fishing community. Jaws set a new record for ticket sales, and executives at movie studios took note. Big action pictures have been released every summer since.
Below I report on this summer's blockbuster-wannabes, all of which involve violent battles or, more often, full-out warfare. These movies also differ from Jaws in a significant way: None of them is based in reality. Fantasy worlds, fantasy characters and fantasy wars abound.
Maybe this is because the presumed audience for these films is young men between the ages of 15 and 30, maybe 32. One speculation is that these viewers have spent so much of their childhood and adolescent years playing video games that they have developed a familiarity with, or maybe a preference for, alternate realities.
In one newish trend, some of this year's movies feature female heroines. Maybe film producers sense a broadening audience.
May 23
X-Men: Days of Future Past
The seventh (by my count) in the popular series: Set in a strange and dystopic future, includes mutants in concentration camps and giant robots called Sentinels. As the film opens, most of the X-Men have been hunted and killed.
May 30
Maleficent
Angelina Jolie in the title role plays "Disney's most beloved villain from the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty."
This one may have crossover appeal to young women as well as young men.
June 13
All Cheerleaders Die
This seems to have been released in some markets last year.
According to critic Dennis Harvey, "This saga of ill-fated pom-pom girls who return from death to wreak vengeance will amuse if not wow jaded horror fans."
Raters on IMDb gave it 5.4 on a 10-point scale.
Dailydead.com loved it, though, calling it a "wickedly fun and savage look at high school and gender politics, all with a supernatural bent."
Again, possible chick appeal.
June 13
The Rover
"Set in a world 10 years following the collapse of the western economic system ... the rule of law has disintegrated and life is cheap," says Movie Insider.
Violence ensues.
Shot in the Australian Outback.
Film is reported to be much anticipated. Maybe people want to see if Robert Pattinson can act.
June 27
Transformers 4: Age of Extinction
Another war of good and evil in the movies inspired by the Transformers line of toys.
The last Transformers movie was the fifth highest-grossing film of all time. Another one was inevitable.
Snowpiercer
Based on a graphic novel. Snowpiercer is a train containing the only surviving life on earth after a failed experiment to stop global warming has instead created an ice age. On board, a revolt begins.
Released in some markets last year. Viewers gave it 7/10 on IMDb, 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes
July 11
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
A second prequel to the 1968 movie. In this one, Caesar and his fellow genetically evolved apes are threatened by human survivors from the 2011 film.
War seems inevitable.
July 18
Jupiter Ascending
Mila Kunis (Jupiter), a Chicago woman who works as a toilet cleaner turns out to be "next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos."
Before she can take her destined role, she is targeted for assassination by the Queen of the Universe.
Maybe girls will like this one, too.
July 25
Hercules
In a new challenge after completing his mythical 12 labors, Hercules is called away from his post-retirement mercenary work by the king of Thrace and his daughter. His fight: "for good to triumph and justice to prevail."
Stars Dwayne Johnson, based on a popular comic book series.
August 1
Guardians of the Galaxy
Introducing a new superhero, Peter Quill, from another Marvel Comics series. The opponent is "Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe."
August 29
Leprechaun: Origins
A much darker reboot of earlier Leprechaun films, including one from 1993.
In the earlier movie, described as a horror comedy, "An evil, sadistic leprechaun goes on a killing rampage in search of his beloved pot of gold," according to IMDb, whose raters gave it a 4.6/10.
The film Jaws has been credited with starting the summer blockbuster trend. Released in 1975, it featured an enormous shark that plagued a small fishing community. Jaws set a new record for ticket sales, and executives at movie studios took note. Big action pictures have been released every summer since.
Below I report on this summer's blockbuster-wannabes, all of which involve violent battles or, more often, full-out warfare. These movies also differ from Jaws in a significant way: None of them is based in reality. Fantasy worlds, fantasy characters and fantasy wars abound.
Maybe this is because the presumed audience for these films is young men between the ages of 15 and 30, maybe 32. One speculation is that these viewers have spent so much of their childhood and adolescent years playing video games that they have developed a familiarity with, or maybe a preference for, alternate realities.
In one newish trend, some of this year's movies feature female heroines. Maybe film producers sense a broadening audience.
May 23
X-Men: Days of Future Past
The seventh (by my count) in the popular series: Set in a strange and dystopic future, includes mutants in concentration camps and giant robots called Sentinels. As the film opens, most of the X-Men have been hunted and killed.
May 30
Maleficent
Angelina Jolie in the title role plays "Disney's most beloved villain from the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty."
This one may have crossover appeal to young women as well as young men.
June 13
This seems to have been released in some markets last year.
According to critic Dennis Harvey, "This saga of ill-fated pom-pom girls who return from death to wreak vengeance will amuse if not wow jaded horror fans."
Raters on IMDb gave it 5.4 on a 10-point scale.
Dailydead.com loved it, though, calling it a "wickedly fun and savage look at high school and gender politics, all with a supernatural bent."
Again, possible chick appeal.
June 13
The Rover
"Set in a world 10 years following the collapse of the western economic system ... the rule of law has disintegrated and life is cheap," says Movie Insider.
Violence ensues.
Shot in the Australian Outback.
Film is reported to be much anticipated. Maybe people want to see if Robert Pattinson can act.
June 27
Transformers 4: Age of Extinction
Another war of good and evil in the movies inspired by the Transformers line of toys.
The last Transformers movie was the fifth highest-grossing film of all time. Another one was inevitable.
Snowpiercer
Based on a graphic novel. Snowpiercer is a train containing the only surviving life on earth after a failed experiment to stop global warming has instead created an ice age. On board, a revolt begins.
Released in some markets last year. Viewers gave it 7/10 on IMDb, 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes
July 11
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
A second prequel to the 1968 movie. In this one, Caesar and his fellow genetically evolved apes are threatened by human survivors from the 2011 film.
War seems inevitable.
July 18
Mila Kunis (Jupiter), a Chicago woman who works as a toilet cleaner turns out to be "next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos."
Before she can take her destined role, she is targeted for assassination by the Queen of the Universe.
Maybe girls will like this one, too.
July 25
Hercules
In a new challenge after completing his mythical 12 labors, Hercules is called away from his post-retirement mercenary work by the king of Thrace and his daughter. His fight: "for good to triumph and justice to prevail."
Stars Dwayne Johnson, based on a popular comic book series.
August 1
Guardians of the Galaxy
Introducing a new superhero, Peter Quill, from another Marvel Comics series. The opponent is "Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe."
August 29
A much darker reboot of earlier Leprechaun films, including one from 1993.
In the earlier movie, described as a horror comedy, "An evil, sadistic leprechaun goes on a killing rampage in search of his beloved pot of gold," according to IMDb, whose raters gave it a 4.6/10.