Fearful Symmetries

What Will Happen to Ace?

2012-01-27T14:38:00.000-06:00

I imagine that Prime Time is in large measure a parody of the BBC with the inhabitants of the planet Blinni-Gaar completely addicted to the mindless television programming on Channel 400. In fact, they are so totally given over to TV that few people actually work with automated combines harvesting the field where the TARDIS lands. Vogol Lukos runs Channel 400 with the aid of a computer system known as "Auntie", presumably as in Auntie Beeb, and he is quite happy to have The Doctor on his planet as he has some designs on making the Time Lord the star of a new show which will have literally the whole star system watching.

Mike Tucker returns here though he is without his usual writing partner, Robert Perry. A blurb notes that Tucker was a BBC special effects guy at the time he wrote the book. Perhaps the story is revenge on his employer. The guy obviously loved the Seventh Doctor and I can't blame him.

The Doctor and Ace wander the city, Blinni Prime, I think, and encounter independent reporter Greg Ashby and his cameraman Eeki Tek. Ace develops a crush on Ashby though he is really out to land an interview with The Doctor, hero of Coralee. Also out on the prowl are a band of bloodthirsty Zzinbriizi Jackals.

The Zzinbriizi are, unsurprisingly, doing the bidding of Lukos who comes across as a very one-dimensional bad guy – power-hungry and cocksure. Think the pirate captain from The Pirate Planet. Not as cartoonish with his own Mr. Fibuli to boss around in the form of talk show host Roderik Saarl. Since Blinni-Gaar has cameras pretty much everywhere, the planet is like one big reality show set. This frustrates The Doctor and Ace who find themselves unable to pull a stunt to gain access to Channel 400 HQ.

I really liked this element of the book. Lukos knows quite a bit about The Doctor and looks to get his hands on the TARDIS. The Time Lord scores a minor victory on a trek to Blinni-Gaar's moon where he discovers Channel 400's broadcast tower and a strange device that is wired into it but Lukos gets the upper hand. He lures The Doctor and Ace into one of the studios with a jungle set that proves to be bigger on the inside than the outside. Plus that pack of Zzinbriizi Jackals are hunting them down. And it's all being broadcast on television to boot.

Ace escapes with the help of a teenage girl named Gatti who must be the only teen in the whole galaxy who doesn't watch TV. Meanwhile The Doctor meets up with The Master who's had his TARDIS jury rigged into that jungle set. The banter between the two Time Lords is fun and we discover that the hold of the Cheetah People remains within The Master just as it did with Ace in Matrix.

Things take a turn for the worse when it is revealed that The Doctor's fellow defiant one is, in fact, not The Master but a Zzinbriizi given a nice disguise by the Fleshsmiths whom I first encountered in Relative Dementias. They have honed the ability to manipulate flesh to an art form. Here we find them in their hideout on the planet Scrantek and it is revealed that, not only has The Master come to them seeking a new body and been betrayed, but also that they've struck a deal with Lukos. He gets the whole galaxy watching Channel 400 whose signal has a Fleshsmith enzyme piggybacking on it which will turn the bodies of viewers into their modeling clay.

Since the Fleshsmiths have the ability to clone, you have to wonder why they took the long way and decided to plot this hideous and hideously complicated subterfuge to transmogrify people into the medium of their choice. Why risk meddling Time Lords when all you have to do is grab once person and you can have all the clay you want? Haste makes waste.

I liked Prime Time even if it was a bit over the top. The Doctor is true to character here as he makes the decision to save the life of the faux Master. And I enjoyed their verbal sparring as they ran through the jungle set. I think it's the first time I've encountered the arch villain in any of the PDAs and it was nice to have Anthony Ainley's version of the character in my imagination. Plus I appreciated the continuity from the TV show regarding his adventures on the Cheetah world.

On the other side, Ashby ends up being rebuilt by the Fleshsmiths which is nice and grotesque but ultimately feels tacked on. His former lover is herself a hostess for Channel 400 and their reunion seems like a convenient ploy to make sure the good guys prevail.

I find myself looking forward to reading the rest of the 7th Doctor PDAs written by Tucker and Perry because they've toyed with Ace here. There is plenty of her kicking ass and taking names but she also gets her 15 minutes of fame at the hands of Roderik Saarl. Stuck onstage and forced to watch images from her future, Ace breaks down emotionally. Images of her elderly mother and of her own grave were just too much. The book ends with The Doctor hunting down that grave and discovering that it is indeed real and not the product of Channel 400's effects team. Chillingly, Ace's body is that of a teenager and not an old woman.

Tucker and Perry have a couple novels left to explain this one.

Near East Side Looking to Brew Up a Storm

2012-01-27T09:45:00.001-06:00

Brewer Peter Gentry is looking to open a nano-brewpub at 1148 Williamson, the former home of Indus Beads. It would be called One Barrel Brewing Company.

Someone else is also looking to open a brewpub in town and is apparently eying up Atwood Avenue as the location.

And yet another person is proposing to open a meadery on the 800 block of East Washington.

Joe or anyone else - are these folks with the MHTG?

My guess is that One Barrel is up for a fight with the neighbors. There was a neighborhood meeting on Tuesday about Gentry's plans but I haven't heard how it went. I suspect that Willy Street denizens who are already fed up with the noise from Plan B and the Wisco are going to put up a fight against another drinking establishment in their neck of the woods. Time will tell.

On a related note, the Joseph James Brewing Co. of Nevada will be opening a brewery in Franklin to brew for Midwest and Northeast markets. Not quite as big a story as Sierra Nevada opening a brewery in North Carolina but good news for Wisconsin nonetheless.

Others: Their Deaths and Their Shoes

2012-01-25T14:36:00.001-06:00

(More here.)

John Tirman, the author of The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars, wrote an very interesting and incredibly sad opinion piece for the Washington Post recently called "Why do we ignore the civilians killed in American wars?".

The major wars the United States has fought since the surrender of Japan in 1945 — in Korea, Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan — have produced colossal carnage. For most of them, we do not have an accurate sense of how many people died, but a conservative estimate is at least 6 million civilians and soldiers.

Our lack of acknowledgment is less oversight than habit, a self-reflective reaction to the horrors of war and an American tradition that goes back decades. We consider ourselves a generous and compassionate nation, and often we are. From the Asian tsunami in 2004 to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Americans have been quick to open their pocketbooks and their hearts.

However, when it comes to our wars overseas, concern for the victims is limited to U.S. troops.

Tirman gives a couple of explanations for this. First is that Americans are good people who go out and kill savages. The second is the "'just world' theory" which says that people assume the world is an orderly place and get mad at people that demonstrate it to be anything but. Civilian deaths in war time don't jibe with the idea that Americans only kill bad guys.

The piece concludes with a plea: "More attention to the human costs may jolt the American public into a more compassionate understanding."

I thought of Tirman's article when I read this one. It describes the outrage felt by many Iraqis in the city of Haditha after Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich received a slap on the wrist for his part in the slaughter of Iraqi civilians there. In November of 2005 a roadside bomb went off killing one of Wuterich's squad and the Marines went on a rampage.

In all, 24 Iraqi civilians were killed – 19 in several houses along with five men who pulled up in a car where the marines were on patrol in Haditha on November 19, 2005.

The victims included 10 women and children killed at point-blank range. Six people were killed in one house, most shot in the head, including women and children huddled in a bedroom.

At first the military said that the Iraqis were killed by an IED and then the truth emerged. Eight Marines were charged but it came down to Wuterich after one Marine was acquitted and the rest had the charges against them dropped. For his part in the massacre, Wuterich agreed to a plea deal which saw him demoted to private, had his pay docked, and was given a 90-day confinement which he won't have to serve. The judge decided not to dock his pay the full amount because Wuterich has sole custody of his three daughters. If only such compassion was shown to the Iraqi children in Haditha on that day.

The upshot is that there are a lot of people in Haditha who are angry because they see American Marines getting away with shooting Iraqi children at point-blank range. I can only imagine the ill-will this judgment generated in the Middle East and in other Islamic areas when the news reached them.

Like that old Rare Bird song goes, sympathy is what we need. (Or perhaps empathy, more correctly.) As Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler wrote in his pamphlet War Is a Racket:

The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the United States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.

I won't be voting for Ron Paul this autumn but this video, which I take to have been made by a PAC that supports him, has the right idea. Put yourself in the shoes of the people who have American soldiers and contractors occupying their homelands; put yourself in the shoes of someone who has American drones flying overhead that could send missiles down at any time; put yourself in the shoes of those unfortunate people in Haditha who had their friends and family members gunned down by American Marines.

The United States is ready to sanction certain banks that deal with Iran's central bank; the EU and Australia are boycotting Iranian oil; Iran, meanwhile, is getting ready to formally tell the EU to fuck off and is threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz.

In his State of the Union address last night, Obama noted that "America is a Pacific power". Our "defense strategy" for the near future is to keep spending more money and focus on the China. As I learned from reading Michael Klare's Resource Wars, "Over at the South China Sea, the region's powerhouse, China, is making waves by claiming an ever larger swath of the sea as its own much to the chagrin of other countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, etc. Japan has an interest here as well as tankers that supply it with oil sail through the area."

Plenty of warmongering to be had.

So the next time you're in a voting booth or listening to some politico lecturing you on the necessity of invading another country, put yourself in the shoes of those at the other end of the barrel of American guns or standing beneath American drones.

Spanish Bishop Decries Tempting Teens (And Jesus Loves Him Some Wheat)

2012-01-25T11:56:00.000-06:00

Those poor priests. The ones who sexually abuse children. According to a bishop named Bernardo Álvarez it's all the fault of the victims because they're just a bunch of tempters and temptresses.

His comments were that there are youngsters who want to be abused, and he compared that abuse to homosexuality, describing them both as prejudicial to society. He said that on occasions the abuse happened because the there are children who consent to it.

‘There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you’, he said.

And of course he threw in the obligatory homophobia during this round of comments as well.

On a slight tangent, I found this article about the manufacture of communion wafers here in the States. As I read I wondered what Catholics who have Celiac disease do when it comes to communion. I read on.

The Catholic Church requires that hosts be made of wheat in order for communion to be valid, but there is a small number of Catholics who suffer from coeliac disease, a hereditary autoimmune disorder that makes it impossible to digest the protein found in wheat gluten. In the 1980s, people with coeliac disease began to agitate within the Church for alternatives to the wheaten Eucharist, that they might participate more fully in Catholic services; but the Church remained intransigent on the point.

Apparently Jesus will only transubstantiate from wheat so the Church turned its back on the gluten-intolerant in its flock. Finally in 2001 an ultra-low gluten version was developed which passed papal muster and that of those with Celiac disease.

My understanding is that Jesus consecrated wheat bread hence the need for wheat wafers. But doesn't the story go that he also consecrated grape wine and not fresh grape juice? If unfermented grape juice is passable for communion these days, then why not rice wafers? Is there some passage in the Bible where Jesus smotes spelt or explains why he won't reify in rice?

I can just imagine a bunch of Sophisticated Theologians® sitting in the basement of The Vatican arguing over why their omnipotent deity preferred wheat and won't let his body be sorghum. It'd be just like that scene from The Name of the Rose.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

2012-01-24T09:35:00.000-06:00

If my stepkids could have their way, they'd be eating sushi from Edo for three squares a day. Hopefully this movie will make its way to a theatre in Madison so we can see it together. If not, I guess we'll end up watching it on Netflix.

Alexios in Absentia

2012-01-23T16:03:00.000-06:00

I recently watched the first episode of a new BBC programme called The Crusades. The show is hosted by Thomas Asbridge, a medieval historian. I have heard good things about his book The First Crusade: A New History and have it on my to-read list. And so it was very disappointing to actually watch the television program.

The first part is called "Holy War" and it is an account of the First Crusade. It begins by showing the statue of Urban II at Clermont where he gave his adamantine call for crusade in November 1095. The show quotes Urban as saying that there were a bunch of barbaric Muslims in the Holy Land making life horrible for fellow Christians. Asbridge describes how nobles such as Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond of Taranto, and Godfrey of Bouillon signed up. Much is made of Urban's promise that those who die will have their sins forgiven. In other words, it's a holy war and those who fought in it did so for the love of their god. It's a very appropriate introduction considering what follows. But it's also jumping the gun, in my opinion.

Now, I'm no scholar of the Crusades but even I sat there waiting for Asbridge to mention the name of the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I, who had written to Urban asking for Western help against the Seljuq Turks in the spring of 1095. He never did. I'm also no scholar of the history of scholarship of the Crusades but my impression is that Asbridge's "new history" is one that emphasizes the religious duty that crusaders felt they had and minimizes what is perhaps a more traditional view which holds that the noblemen who led the First Crusade were less interested in doing God's work and more keen on crushing their enemies, seeing them driven before them, hearing the lamentation of their women, and gathering up all their booty. Fair enough. In my last adventure learning about The Crusades, a sense of religious duty was definitely one of the motivations mentioned. The problem is that Asbridge never mentions Alexios I by name and says, strictly in passing, that Byzantine emperors had appealed to the Latin West for help in the past. All the emphasis on piety and duty relegates the fact that Alexios I asked for help in March 1095 and that this was a prime factor in Urban calling for a crusade in the first place to the deleted scenes featurette on the forthcoming DVD. Plus Byzantine emperors loved to dangle the carrot of reconciling the Latin Church with the Eastern Orthodox one. When Urban made his speech, it had been just over 40 years since a papal legate and the patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated one another.

I found this part of the show confusing. Asbridge notes that Jerusalem had been in Muslim hands for a few centuries and that seemed to work out OK so there was no new and urgent reason to take Jerusalem. Urban was faced with a problem in trying to motivate people to retake the city. Asbridge takes Urban to task for lying about Muslim treatment of Christians in the Levant but he never really establishes why Urban called for a crusade in the first place. It was like he pulled a new religious duty out of his ass. Not only was Alexios' plea ignored but I don't recall the program saying a word about how it had become incredibly difficult for Westerners to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

Alexios at least gets mentioned – referred to only as "the Byzantine emperor" – when the main contingent of Frankish nobles arrive in Constantinople. Other than this, the Byzantines aren't mentioned at all. Asbridge devoted a few seconds to the so-called "People's Crusade" which arrived in Constantinople first. Comprised of pilgrims and some minor nobles, it proved to be an unruly mob which not only massacred Jews along the way (which was mentioned briefly in the show) but also pillaged the area outside the walls of Constantinople (not a peep about this). This is important because the show recites the words of the one of the important Frankish nobles in the second wave upon meeting Alexios which leads viewers to believe that all was well with the Crusaders and their host. However, this was not the case. Alexios was really unamused by the first wave of crusaders and was thusly highly suspicious when the second arrived. He made the leaders take an oath of fealty to him, gave them provisions, and sent them on their way so that they'd be the Muslims' problem, not his.

While in Anatolia, the Crusaders were joined by some Byzantine forces, a fact that Asbridge never mentions. I think that the Byzantine troops had all returned from whence they came by the time the Crusade made it to the Levant, but this certainly is no reason to avoid noting their presence altogether. Asbridge focuses on the fierce resolve of the Westerners in face of some terrible trials and tribulations and it cannot be denied that they encountered some adverse situations, to say the least, and overcame them. Their story is truly remarkable. But Asbridge goes too far with this Hollywood-esque underdog-beats-the-odds approach. Context is left out and details get ignored. Antioch and Jerusalem are mentioned but why was Edessa left out? It was one of the three crusader states that were established in the wake of the First Crusade.

In addition to the Byzantines being left out, I think that only a single Muslim was mentioned. It's sort of ironic because Asbridge talks about Urban II making the Muslims out to be the dreaded "Other" and demonizing them, yet Asbridge basically does the same thing. When the Crusaders battle Turks for the first time, he says that the leaders were caught off guard as they'd never encountered Muslims and their style of fighting. Perhaps I'm confusing this crusade with a later one, but I thought that at least one of the nobles on the First Crusade had fought in the Reconquista and was familiar with their opponent's tactics.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this program was written under the impression that it would be 90 minutes or 2 hours long and that some producer made the decision to cut it down and make it into such a narrow story worthy of Hollywood. From what I can tell, Asbridge is a scholar of some repute so the omission of so much information must surely have been anathema to him.

Aside from all that's wrong about the program, there are several good elements to the show. First is that you get to see some pretty pictures in HD. It was great to see the last remaining section of the wall which surrounded Antioch in the late 11th century as well as a few books which are some of the precious few primary and secondary sources we have. The illumination/gilding looked magnificent. (Although you have to laugh at his feigned surprise at seeing these books. The guy has a doctorate in the subject and is a published author. He has no doubt seen all these texts before.) I want to give Asbridge and the makers of the show my great thanks for not doing reenactments. I'd rather look at illuminated codices than watch reenactments. The only computer-generated anything was probably the maps, which they made good use of in orientating the viewer. Some CGI reconstructions of cities wouldn't have been bad but I like the stylistic decision to stick with real things that you can stick a camera in front of. There were some awkward shots, though. The program made use of contemporary footage of the Levant and hearing Asbridge's narration about Muslim attacks while seeing some gentlemen at a table playing a game and drinking tea was, well, awkward.

Lastly Asbridge deserves credit for taking time at the beginning of the show to explain and emphasize the role of religion during the Middle Ages in Western Europe and how this helped explain the answer to Urban II's call. Westerners live in secular nations these days whereas a thousand years ago religion was ubiquitous and had the Church had a large role in both secular and quotidian affairs. Securing an afterlife in heaven was a much greater priority then than today.

While there was much to like about this first episode of the series, I am still amazed at just how much was left out. One needn't go on about the state of Frankish political affairs or the different factions in Anatolia, but I just don't understand how you can talk about the Crusades and all but avoid mentioning the Byzantines. The narrative here is so narrow to be misleading. Hopefully part 2 will be better.

"The real face of America is Guantanamo"

2012-01-17T16:14:00.002-06:00

Guilty of nothing, Lakhdar Boumediene, was thrown into Guantanamo and tortured. He was there seven years. His life in is ruins. Yet most Americans don't care. Where are the "progressives" on this? Oh, that's right. It's all Obama-approved so they dare not say anything.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Stormwatch Brews as the White Sea Snaps

2012-01-12T15:55:00.001-06:00

Considering that Matrix was a big letdown I wasn't quite sure what to think when picking up >Storm Harvest. Would it be as bad as its predecessor? Or would it be a return to form? I mean, Perry and Tucker did write Illegal Alien which was quite good so perhaps Matrix was an aberration. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Storm Harvest kicked some major butt.

Most of the Seventh Doctor PDAs that I'd read until this point had gloomy settings. London during the Blitz, a spooky old nursing home and underwater spaceship, and Whitechapel with Jack the Ripper on the loose. Even the a rural village in The Hollow Men utilized the cover of night and underground passages. And they all took place on Earth. Here I found welcome relief from the murkiness as Storm Harvest takes place on 43rd century Coralee, a planet whose surface is mostly oceans. About 98% of it with the paltry bit of land that human colonists have given over to resort development. Like a planetary Club Med. There's beautiful blue oceans, sand, and sun – a marked contrast to the previous novels.

After the depressing events of Matrix, The Doctor and Ace retreat to Coralee for some R&R. I found the picture of The Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS onto the beach with his trouser cuffs rolled up to his knees while clutching a red bucket along with a small shovel to be genuinely funny. (Oh, and he had a kite too.) He builds a sandcastle in the shape of the City of the Exxilons (it's from Death to the Daleks - had to look that one up) which he gets to glow. Again, I was humored but this time by the picture of a cable running from the TARDIS to a sandcastle.

Of course all is not well on this pelagic holiday. A research vessel, the Hyperion Dawn, is savagely attacked on the high seas by unknown forces with both the crew, minus one survivor, and the ship being shredded to pieces. The beauty of this opening sequence is its pacing and it extends through the whole of the book. Perry and Tucker let events unfold at a natural pace with no last second tweak foiling a complex plan and saving the day in one fell swoop when multiple stratagems over a couple hundred pages couldn't do the trick. They build a sense of menace and nurture it until it becomes dread.

In the scene we witness the crew working and learn a little about them. A couple divers work below while the rest of the crew prepare equipment on the ship. There's a bit of friendly banter with crew leader Holly Relf calling one of the divers by his nickname, "Bruiser". Things seem to be going well until the divers realize that all of the fish have dispersed. Not a single one remains in sight. They radio up to the surface and Relf decides to bring the divers back up immediately. The wench attached to the safety lines gets rolling. Relf is forced to fight the urge to vomit when she sees that all that is left of the diver is one incredibly mangled body. She is about to issue a strategic advance to the rear when the ship heaves. It is now under attack and the results won't be pretty.

Back on the shore The Doctor and Ace meet Edwin Bryce, a travel writer who is almost fond of the drink. He has written a cookbook consisting of the finest Androgum recipes for novices (Yay! A Sixth Doctor reference!) and is currently researching his next tome which will be a chronicle of his travels in the colonies. He blathers on about Coralee's original and highly bellicose inhabitants as well as a race of hideous creatures called Krill. The only thing left of the aboriginal population are their great cities which are ruins submerged beneath the waves.

This piques The Doctor's curiosity and trips some alarm bells too so he heads to the colony's administrative building. To get in, he does what many college students have done: creates a fake ID. Posing as an agent of InterOceanic, he gains entry where he meets, or rather discovers the colony co-ordinator, Brenda Mulholland, unconscious in a meeting room. He also inveigles his way into a mission to check out the wreck of the Hyperion Dawn with one Professor MacKenzie.

Meanwhile Ace decides to take the tourist route with an underwater sight-seeing tour of the ruins that Bryce described. The submarine is captained by Rajiid, a rather dashing Indian gentleman (Yay! A person of color!) that Ace is attracted to. Also part of the crew is the cicerone, a dolphin named R'tk'tk. Here in the 43rd century, dolphins are outfitted with headsets which translate their clicks into English. There are also these exoskeletons with mechanical tentacles that they use to move about on land. Professor MacKenzie has a cetacean companion as well named Q'ilp who smokes a cigar when out of the water and likes to talk smack. These dolphins could have been really cheesy characters but are done well. R'tk'tk and Q'ilp engage in some verbal sparring as dolphins are, as we learn, a quarrelsome bunch who have a few hundred ways of offending one another's immediate family members. (A nice nod to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, if you ask me.) And it isn't the humans who get all the action. R'tk'tk and Q'ilp get their chances at a bit of derring do. The cetaceans aren't relegated to being a prop in the background and they don't end up being delphinus ex machina either. They are just eminently likeable characters that have full subsidiary roles.

And then there are the Cythosi, a despicable race which have a penchant for keeping humans as slaves. Although they await in their ship out in space, they are monitoring the events on Coralee closely.

In addition to loving the change of scenery, I also appreciated that Storm Harvest had a fair number of non-humans. The Cythosi, Krill, Dreekans, and any number of alien tourists. Plus those dolphins. Perry and Tucker ably juggled them all. But the best part of the story is how the authors built up the menace with a bit of creepiness here and an attack there until it was all-out doom and the reader is confronting a base-under-siege story. Perry and Tucker leave themselves plenty of pages after the menacing and nearly indestructible Krill begin their assault and they come up with something a bit like Aliens. Truth be told, I was genuinely creeped-out by it all. Despite knowing that our beloved heroes would live to fight another day, I had a very hard time putting the book down.

I adored Storm Harvest and Perry and Tucker get bonus points from me for having The Doctor say, "I'll have you know that back on Gallifrey I was renowned for my sartorial elegance!" That made me chuckle. Easily the best Seventh Doctor PDA so far.

Fotoshop by Adobé

2012-01-10T16:32:00.000-06:00

The latest beauty product.

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come for Madison

2012-01-10T15:51:00.002-06:00

A pozoleria!

I could murder a bowl of pozole right now. Too bad Pozoleria San Juan is in Chicago. The Chicagoist is on the case.

Pozole, a traditional Mexican soup made of hominy, or dried maize, kernels, is the speciality of the restaurant, although a wide variety of flautas, tacos and tortas expand the menu. Keeping true to their heritage, the pozoleria offers three kinds of pozole: roja, verde and blanca, each representing a color of the Mexican flag.

I'll have mine mit chicharrón y aguacate, bitte.

Plus they're open 24 hours on Friday and Saturday and until 1AM the rest of the week. I can see a roadtrip in my future. Get an early start, have some pozole for breakfast, and then cruise around town.

Return of the Scrapyard

2012-01-10T14:25:00.002-06:00

Matrix is another Seventh Doctor PDA written by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker. The pair of them wrote four of the eleven 7th Doc PDAs while Tucker did one solo. I'm not sure how they managed to hoard so many of the 7th Doctor slots but, as I plow through them, I am getting to know their style.

The book begins with a mysterious figure huddled in a Gothic cathedral concocting a clay figure with its pale, bony hands. A dash of necromantic energy and POOF! – the figure disappears. We then join an introspective Doctor who stares out at an ocean. He's brooding over his inability to relate to his companions on an emotional level and laments that he is no better in this respect than his Time Lord peers which he abandoned. Suddenly a golem appears out of nowhere. After a brief chase into a lighthouse, Ace dispatches the thing with some of her Nitro-9.

The Doctor and Ace retreat to the friendly confines of the TARDIS only to discover that an evil, yet familiar, presence has infiltrated the old girl. It taunts The Doctor and tears at his mind. Finally he realizes that this presence has taken advantage of the TARDIS' telepathic circuit so he removes it. Thinking that Ace is in danger, The Doctor decides to leave Ace in the care of himself or, rather, his first incarnation, and so it's off to London in November 1963. But things there are wrong. For one thing, there are zombies running around. Another is that it appears that his previous self had never been there. He and Ace run into old companions Ian and Barbara who don't know a Doctor nor Susan. After Barbara explains how things got to be the way they are, The Doctor decides to travel back to the point in time and space when things went awry for Earth's history: Whitechapel, 1888.

Almost immediately after landing in a shipyard, The Doctor becomes a Time Lord possessed and attempts to kill Ace. But at the last moment he is able to fight the force which possesses him allowing Ace to flee. At this point, I knew that this was going to be one of those stories in which The Doctor and his companion were going to be separated for a time. I just didn't think it would be for as long as it was. Every once in a while as I read I took note of how long it had been since The Doctor made an appearance. "Ooh, it's been 50 pages." "Man, 80 pages and no sign of him." Separating The Doctor and Ace isn't a bad thing. Giving The Doctor amnesia so that he is basically absent from the story for most of it also isn't necessarily a bad thing when you've got a companion like Ace who is resourceful and interesting in her own right. The problem here is that the story is just a mess.

And it's a mess from the beginning. While I appreciated the sense of gloom and foreboding that Perry and Tucker create (and sustain throughout), the story just starts too abruptly for my taste. Why is The Doctor brooding? From information learned later in the story, I think an argument can be made that his mood at the beginning of the story is related to the machinations of the villain but I don't think that link is ever made explicitly. The opening scene with the golem just feels out of place and thrown in just because Perry and Tucker needed to start somewhere. It's too short and golems don't have a big role in the rest of the story.

The pall hanging over the heads of our heroes only deepens in Whitechapel, and that's a good thing, as is Malacroix, the sinister ringmaster of a circus that has set up shop in London. Ace's story of survival on the mean streets of Whitechapel makes for a good tale. She meets various minor characters that add to the atmosphere and, more importantly, the struggle brings out the Cheetah that remains inside her from the TV story Survival. Malacroix will stop at nothing to have her in his troupe of freaks.

Exposing the traces of the Cheetah planet that still reside within Ace complements The Doctor's dilemma well, namely, that the bad guy here is the Valeyard, that distillation of The Doctor's darker elements from his penultimate incarnation writ large and given corporeal form who was featured in Trail of a Time Lord in Sixth Doctor's final season. Given that the Valeyard is the mirror image of The Doctor, he is an extremely interesting character with lots of potential. Unfortunately Perry and Tucker can't capitalize on the opportunity.

At the end of the book, the Valeyard reveals his blasphemous machinations. In short, he survived defeat on the television show and absconded away with the Dark Matrix, a vast repository of all the "forbidden thoughts" of every Time Lord that died, inside a TARDIS. He then set about capturing all of The Doctor's previous incarnations and fostered their evil sides. The Valeyard landed his TARDIS underneath a church in Whitechapel and began his scheming.

I think this is a pretty bad-ass bit of conniving but Perry and Tucker don't utilize the Valeyard to the full extent. He hides in his TARDIS making golems and saying stock bad guy things like "Now you have are in my grasp, Doctor" and "She cannot interfere with my plans!" (These aren't direct quotes, mind you.) For such a wonderfully evil character, he just doesn't do a whole helluva lot beyond pulling the odd string until the very end of the story where The Doctor foils everything with due haste. That The Doctor is in a self-imposed state of amnesia and absent for most of the story compounds the problem because these two aspects of the same being confront one another for a paltry amount of time when their encounter should have been lengthier and more meaningful. We should have learned more about The Doctor and, perhaps, have any new revelations tie in with the weltschmerz that he felt at the beginning of the book. It feels like an opportunity to add depth to The Doctor's character and have a really big showdown was wasted.

There's another character that deserves mention and that is Joseph Liebermann. He is a kindly old Jewish man that takes in Johnny, a.k.a. The Doctor when he cannot recall his identity. Liebermann seems resigned to his fate – the Jews are always blamed. The curious part is that he is very old – more than twice as old as The Doctor – yet we learn very little about him and what accounts for his longevity. He is perhaps the Wandering Jew of Christian folklore. The book has six parts and each part is prefaced by a short scene that is outside of the main story. Part Six opens with Liebermann identifying himself as Isaac and he is in a bar in Salt Lake City when the Eighth Doctor pops in and strikes up a conversation with him. Liebermann reveals that he was given the name Joseph by a man call Ananius. Perhaps this Ananius is Ananias of Damascus, a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Other scenes include Pontius Pilate being told that one Cartaphilius has gone on a journey, Joseph encountering some treasure hunters in the desert of Qumran, an old man looking in Antwerp discovering that he is young again, and an old man giving some solace to a young girl.

Perry and Tucker could have been laying the groundwork for Liebermann to return in a future book but I cannot find any evidence to support this notion. Thusly I can only conclude that they said all they wanted to say about him here. Just as Ace's inner Cheetah reflects the Doctor vs. Valeyard duality, Liebermann seems to be yet another analogue of The Doctor. The pair fix clocks together, many of which line the walls of Liebermann's home. As Johnny, The Doctor performed a supernatural card trick in a bar which Liebermann correctly surmised as being his attempt at constructing a matrix.

But the important part is that Liebermann, like The Doctor, wanders. Also like The Doctor, he tries to help others. However, he is weary. Is The Doctor getting fatigued as well? It's possible that his little bout with ennui at the beginning of the book is a symptom of this (or perhaps it was the result of his previous incarnations being pulled from their timelines.) Regardless, the book doesn't dwell on this although later books in the series may return to this notion.

While there is a plethora of interesting ideas here, Matrix ultimately fails because it's too big of a mess. Furthermore it woefully neglects the villain with the Valeyard doing precious little and being disposed of all too quickly.

In Praise of the Oxford Comma

2012-01-10T11:48:00.000-06:00

I thought this was a funny little demonstration of why the English language needs Oxford commas. But I ran into a real-world instance today up at Salon in David Sirota's piece "What makes a progressive?" In describing some of Ron Paul's positions on issues, he writes:

"At the same time, though, when it comes to war, surveillance, police power, bank bailouts, cutting the defense budget, eliminating corporate welfare and civil liberties, Paul is more in line with progressive goals than any candidate running in 2012 (or almost any Democrat who has held a federal office in the last 30 years)."

(Emphasis mine.)

Paul does not run on a platform of eliminating civil liberties yet Sirota's statement is unclear with the comma. It should read "At the same time, though, when it comes to war, surveillance, police power, bank bailouts, cutting the defense budget, eliminating corporate welfare, and civil liberties..."

Doctor Who: Relative Dementias by Mark Michalowski

2012-01-04T18:56:00.000-06:00

While Relative Dementias was the eighth 7th Doctor PDA to be published, it is the first in order chronologically. Author Mark Michalowski places his story between Battlefield and Ghost Light both of which were part of the final season of the Classic Series. Like most of that season and all of the 7th Doctor PDAs I've read so far, this story takes place on Earth.

I liked how Relative Dementias opened with a burst of short scenes that fail to include The Doctor and Ace. The prologue introduces us to Graystairs, what I took to be an old folks home. It's a staccato series of bits of conversations that are derived from the elderly and the senile being left at Graystairs by their families. I was vaguely reminded of those "Camera Eye" sections of the U.S.A. Trilogy by John Dos Passos. This gives way to another short section in which we meet a female character who is on watch on a shoreline of some sort. We have no idea what she's keeping an eye out for or why she is in a new body that has a bum fingernail.

Next we meet Doctor Joyce Brunner. She is a member of UNIT and knows The Doctor. However, Dr. Brunner knows the Third Doctor (and Bessie too!). She has brought her mother to Graystairs, which is somewhere in rural Scotland, but has some "vague concerns" about the place. So she contacts The Doctor the only way she knows how: sends a postcard to the PO box in London that he gave her. And lastly before our intrepid time travelers enter the scene, we get a brief glimpse inside Graystairs with orderlies being ornery and fussing over the disappearance of one of their patients, Eddie.

I don't doubt that some people would find this rapid-fire introduction of places and characters, some named and some left anonymous, to be confusing. But it does lay out many of the story's building blocks from the get-go and, quite frankly, I don't mind being a bit confused. Indeed, I rather like that sense of bewilderment because it means that the game is afoot.

The Doctor and Ace finally enter the picture as they traipse around London in 2012. They make a stop at the residence of Countess Gallowglass who runs a little post office for aliens on Earth so that they can get their mail. The Doctor hasn't checked his in quite some time and is perturbed by something he received. He keeps his cards close to his chest and really pisses Ace off when he locks her out of the Console Room. She can hear him speaking with someone else but can't discern much more than that.

Just when we think that Michalowski is finished giving us the introductory material, he throws in a diver in some body of water somewhere who finds a dome underneath the surface. Yet another place and person to contend with.

With a highly irritated companion, The Doctor sets course for Muirbridge in 1982. He explains to Ace that an old friend of his, Dr. Joyce Brunner, has some reservations about a facility claiming to have found a cure for Alzheimer's disease and he's bound to investigate.

As you can imagine, not all is as it appears at Graystairs. A bald albino man sits alone on the top floor crying to opera while patients go missing and one even gets total recall. Ace and The Doctor investigate things separately which leaves the former on her own when she stumbles across a teleportation device in Graystairs' basement. She fends off the albino's henchwoman, Megan, with a frying pan before being teleported to an alien ship that features Graystairs patients neurally hooked up to a computer in what we later find out to be a parallel processing array. Ace gets to be a hero here, in addition to being something of a badass. She plies her heroics on the ship solo and eludes that albino, whom we find out is named Sooal and guess what planet he's from. His motives lie far away from curing Alzheimer's.

Ace ends up in the North Sea where she meets up with a certain diver and, if you don't want some major spoilers, skip this paragraph. She finds out that she's near the Orkney Islands, hundreds of miles away from Muirbridge. In a neat twist, Ace sends a postcard to The Doctor pleading for rescue. He gets it in 2012 along with Joyce's missive. There are eventually two Aces running around Muirbridge which, after you find this out and think back, explains some of the mysterious occurrences from earlier in the book. Michalowski handles this little temporal discommotion very well.

Spoilers over.

At one point in the story, The Doctor gets hooked up to the array on the space ship and has a couple visions. One involves Leela, which he realizes is a memory from his past, but the other is of a lone, baleful gray eye looking at him through a broken window that shimmered orange and brown and yellow. It whispers to The Doctor and asks if he'd forgotten him already. The Doctor ponders this vision at the end of the story and I am wondering if it will be addressed in another of these PDAs.

Being set in the time period of the show's last season, Relative Dementias does include some Cartmel Masterplany stuff. The mysterious vision is one element that can be ascribed to it. Another is Brunner's son, Michael. Michael is in UNIT, or rather was in UNIT. He's gone AWOL and is wrestling with telling his mother. His decision to desert his post came from much anger and confusion. Amongst the reasons is The Doctor who, although he has helped humanity, has also been responsible for the deaths of many people including Michael's friends and comrades in arms. It's a far cry from intimations about The Doctor's mysterious past but I think it fits in with an overall darker view of him and engenders some ambivalence about him as well. This is something that have fit well in the last season of the New Series.

Michalowski generally keeps his characterizations of The Doctor and Ace within the boundaries set by the TV series. I've noticed that there's a general consensus amongst fans that, for the 7th Doctor, portraying him and Ace in a way that is consonant with how they were portrayed on TV is a good thing. (Conversely, fans of the 6th Doctor books praise authors who portray him in a less acerbic manner than he was on TV and more like the character that Colin Baker and Big Finish developed for their audios.) And I suppose it is. This certainly gives the books a certain familiarity. On the other hand, I am curious if any of the authors tweaked the characters a bit. I'm not looking for a 180 but for some development, some expansion. So far I haven't found that in the PDAs but it may happen yet. I'm not complaining, mind you. Perhaps the Virgin New Adventures take our beloved heroes in new directions. I shall find out.

With Ace being separated from The Doctor for quite a while and the fact that she takes charge, saves people, and kicks a little butt, it's easier to see how she is a precursor to the companions of the New Series. While there's no Nitro 9 here, Ace is a partner to The Doctor and not simply a damsel in distress and/or springboard for the Timelord to relay his deductions. Michalowski portrays her as capable, smart, and independent yet also as a teenager still figuring out what it means to be an adult. She blushes when meeting a cute young man yet is able to adjust to being thrust onto an alien space ship like a consummate pro.

Relative Dementias kept mostly to the blueprint established by the TV show but it tweaked the formula a little bit. There are more subsidiary characters here and it was fun to read as Michalowski established them independently and then drew them all together. Plus there's Michal who views The Doctor as someone who brings death in his wake as opposed to a savior to humanity. But it's mostly The Doctor and Ace battling an alien baddie. The time travel twist was icing on the cake.

The Thing in 60 Seconds With Pingu

2012-01-04T08:22:00.001-06:00

Pingu is, according to Wikipedia, "a British-Swiss stop-motion claymated television series...about a family of anthropomorphic penguins at the South Pole."

New Glarus' 2012 Schedule Part I

2011-12-23T16:25:00.000-06:00

New Glarus has released the first part of their 2012 release schedule.

I am thrilled to see that Two Women is returning next year. Road Slush, an oatmeal stout, and Hop Hearty IPA are back as well after a hiatus. That means Coffee Stout is taking a rest. Not sure what Hop Hearty is replacing. I am also glad that Cabin Fever Honey Bock shall make another appearance as I really like having the year bookended with bocks. (Please let Back 40 return...)

The first Thumbprint brew is a barley wine and the second will be Cherry Stout. I still have 3 bottles of the last barley wine they brewed and two of the Iced Barley Wine in my cellar. I'll have to give those a try when winter really settles in.

No Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. for Madison?

2011-12-23T16:07:00.000-06:00

The Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. is set for 26 January. This is when filmmakers and their films leave Utah and roadshow their movies at select theatres around the country. Sundance Cinemas - Madison has been participating the past couple years (since it started?) so I find it odd that we've been left out for 2012. The Sundance theatres in San Francisco and Houston are a go, so why not Madison?

In other film news, both Cinematheque and the WUD Film Committee have released their spring semester schedules.

Oh Herr Sedlmayr, What Have They Done? Hoptoberfest by Milwaukee Brewing Company

2011-12-21T06:44:00.000-06:00

It's December so now is the time to clear out the Oktoberfests, right?

Hoptoberfest is a Märzen from Milwaukee Brewing Company and, as the name implies, it has more hops than your average Oktoberfest.

In your glass, it has a nice reddish amber color and I got a nice, foamy head that lingered when I poured it. Taking a whiff, the malt came across as both caramel and biscuit, slightly more of the former. You can catch the hops in the nose too with it being herbally inclined.

Hoptoberfest has a medium body but it tasted a bit lighter than I'm used to in a Märzen. It has a moderate malt sweetness with some nutty overtones. So far, so good. The hop flavor is moderately high in general and very high for the style. You get a good dose here of grassy hops with a liminal floral accent underneath to boot.

When I bought this beer I was a bit nervous because I wasn't sure if the HOP bit meant tilting the scales away from the malt sweetness which typically gets the nod with Oktoberfests or if it was going to be a Märzen with the hops really jacked up. It's towards the latter here. A lot more hops (and more alcohol too with its 6% ABV being just above the high end of the range for the style.) While I'm not a purist who thinks tradition shouldn't be tampered with, Hoptoberfest just didn't do it for me. Either it needs a bigger malt backbone or the hops should be dialed back a little bit. Almost everything about this beer was clean like a good lager should be, but the bitterness simply overpowered the malt and got in the way of a nice dry finish.

Junk food pairing: I'd go with a good Indian snack mix. Let the curry leaves, coriander, and other aromatic spices balance out the bitterness.

Overheard

2011-12-20T12:39:00.001-06:00

Man #1: How old are you?

Man #2: 38.

Man #1: Just wait til you're 40.

Man #2: (inaudbile)

Man #1: Yeah, well just wait because the other alternative isn't that good either.

Across the Great Divide: Hoss Rye Lager

2011-12-20T10:13:00.002-06:00

Unfortunately Denver's Great Divide Brewing doesn't distribute here in Wisconsin. If they did, I would certainly be buying more off their Hoss, a rye lager. And so would a couple friends of mine to whom I gave some and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hoss is based on the Märzen style which, to my mind, means a malty lager with a goodly amount of hops thrown in to keep it from being very sweet and giving the beer a dry finish. This brew is very much in line with this definition excepting the presence of rye in the grist. I personally love rye in my bread – liquid and solid.

This stuff pours a nice copper color with a good head which disappears rather quickly. The aroma is part caramel from the malt and part sharp rye graininess. Drinking it, I first tasted the malt. It was caramely with a slight fruitiness to it – like plum. This was quickly joined by the rye spiciness and made for a great pairing with a medium body. Hoss finishes with on a dry note with a moderate grassy hop bitterness which melds with the zesty rye very well.

As far as I can recall, this is the first rye lager I've ever had and it was a fantastic first experience with the style. I appreciated that it was prominent in the flavor profile instead of lurking in the background while the other flavors took center stage. The barley, rye, and hops make for a wonderfully tasty triumvirate of gustatory goodness. The interplay among them makes for a crisp, refreshing beer that also has some heft. This is one of my favorite beers of the year. Unfortunately I have but one remaining bottle and I fear that I am going to start acting like Gollum around it.

Junk food pairing: Grab a handful of Jay's Barbecue potato chips to go with this beer. I betcha can't eat nor drink just one.

Since Hoss is unavailable in Wisconsin, I will recommend a trio of brews for anyone who likes rye bier or may want to try one out.

First I will note that Scotty, the brewmaster over at Vintage on Madison's west side, has his Tippy Toboggan Roggenbier on tap now. This is an ale. (Roggenbier is German for rye beer.) I had some of this for the first time at the Great Taste this past summer and it got my Teutonic heart all a-flutter.

Founders brews Red's Rye PA and this is another great brew. Very hoppy yet the rye shines through.

Page over at House of Brews has a rye Kölsch which I love. The rye is subtle here, though.

Surly also has a rye Märzen called SurlyFest but I've never had it. But it sounds great.

No End for War in Iraq

2011-12-19T11:32:00.003-06:00

I am very happy that our troops have finally left Iraq. My fellow blogger Gregory Humphrey is as well and he wrote a post expressing relief that our soldiers are leaving Iraq and that the war has had some horrible consequences. He lists many of them including dead and wounded American soldiers, the riches of Croesus having been spent, a serious blow to the United States' reputation, and the moral failing of the American people.

What's missing from his account, however, is any notion that 100,000+ Iraqi civilians died in the conflict. According to Iraq Body Count, we're looking at 104,122-113,770 dead Iraqis and that's a highly conservative estimate. Nearly three years ago some estimates gave us these gruesome statistics: about 1 million killed, 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million widows, 5 million orphans.

So, while Humphrey points out many tragedies, he neglects the extremely heavy toll inflicted on the Iraqi people and opts to lament, "Woe is us!" a shameful and solipsism display on his part.

The problem is that we are not leaving Iraq. As Spencer Ackerman of Wired notes, we have a mega-embassy there with some 18,000 people and there will be 3,500-5,500 "armed private security contractors". Security contractors? Soldiers? A distinction without a difference. I'm sure the Iraqi people simply see Americans with guns. And let's not forget that our troops are leaving because of the insistence of the Iraqi government, not because President Obama was ready to bring the boys back home.

If you were an Iraqi or an Iranian or just any average citizen of a Middle Eastern country, how would you take Obama's statement that "our strong presence in the Middle East endures"? (That's where the oil is, after all.) Does it instill confidence that Big Daddy Obama is looking out for you or do you take it as a threat? The Authorization for Use of Military Force is still intact so our government stands ready to send troops back to Iraq or anywhere else there are people considered to be terrorists. Plus no boots on the ground are required to start the Drone Wars in Iraq.

There are still lots of people in the Islamic world who recall with extreme embarrassment the ass-kicking that Muslims suffered at the hands of the Mongols in the 13th century (Hulagu Khan, for instance, laid waste to Baghdad in 1258.) yet the Obama administration sounds like it wants everyone to forget the millions of Iraqis who were killed, maimed, displaced, widowed, orphaned, or otherwise had their lives upset by our invasion. To add insult to injury, we are keeping a mega-embassy there along with thousands of security contractors and a promise to maintain a warlike posture in the region. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone over there for taking Obama's comment as a threat and think that we should be prepared for more blowback. End of the war my ass.

Doctor Who: The Hollow Men by Keith Topping and Martin Day

2011-12-19T08:33:00.000-06:00

The Hollow Men is a sequel to one of my favorite stories from the classic series, The Awakening. This isn't immediately evident, however. There are two prologues and the first concerns “the most evil man on God's earth”, one George Jeffreys who proceeds to turn the village of Hexen Bridge into a charnel house. It is one of the most hideous episodes to be featured in a Doctor Who story.

Fast forward to the dawn of the 21st century. The TARDIS lands just outside of the accursed Hexen Bridge with The Doctor intent on attending a reunion at the village's school where he is on the board of governors, which I take to be the equivalent of our school board. The village is not dissimilar to the one in Grave Matter - an insulated community populated by a bunch of suspicious locals and a tavern where information is to be had. However, it turns out that Hexen Bridge is less like the village on the Dorsill island and more like Innsmouth.

Instead of an Innsmouth look, the population of Hexen Bridge remains preternaturally steady, although the suicide rates of the school's alumni is very high and people who leave the village discover that they are either barren or sterile. Zadok Allen is replaced by the Reverend Thomas Baber. And instead of fishmen, we get scarecrows.

The Doctor and his companions are usually separated but Seven and Ace seem to remain apart for longer than is normal here. The Doctor is kidnapped and taken to Liverpool while Ace remains in Hexen Bridge where she sneaks about looking for clues and dodging the mulitifoliate menaces. For his part, The Doctor uncovers the scheming of Hexen Bridge alumni Matthew Hatch and Kenny Shanks. Gun-running is minor compared with aiding and abetting the thing underneath the village green in their hometown which is a cousin of the Malus from The Awakening. It also turns out that Hexen Bridge is close to that story's Little Hodcombe.

Just as in Illegal Alien the lilywhite setting is disrupted by colored folk. Instead of a black American ex-pat we have the Chens, a Chinese family. These perpetual outsiders moved to Hexen Bridge and opened a restaurant. They provide a target for hatred as well as allies for our heroes. Plus they can cook a meal fit for a Time Lord. I'm not sure why authors Keith Topping and Martin Day included them. Were they just useful for providing a contrast to the creepy consanguineous white people or were the authors commenting upon English villages or, at least, the portrayal of them in fiction?

Although the cover says this story takes place between The Curse of Fenric and Survival which places it in the show's last season on the air, there isn't much in the way of the Cartmel Masterplan to be had. The Doctor and Ace's relationship doesn't involve the former trying to get the latter to acknowledge and understand her past instead of running away from it. Furthermore there are no hints that The Doctor is something more than your average Time Lord gone incommunicado in a Type 40 TARDIS.

This certainly is no problem; it's just that I'm curious as to whether the BBC 7th Doctor books follow in what I am told are the footsteps of the Virgin New Adventures in portraying Seven as being darker and more mysterious than he was generally portrayed on TV. So far that's not the case. All three Seventh Doctor books in the series that I have read/am reading take place on Earth. Again, not a problem but I am looking forward to some off-world adventures.

The Hollow Men has the spirit of the Classic Series and, as these book tend to do, it expands on the formula of the TV show. A couple more subsidiary characters get some space above and beyond what the show would have done, there is more blood and guts, and there are more locales than the television version's budget would have allowed. Oh, and there's some nudity and sexual references as well.

Quite simply, a fun read.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Urophilic

2011-12-19T08:32:00.000-06:00

Considering the plot - about a woman's difficulty in getting her boyfriend to give her a golden shower - this is a funny and dare I say cute little movie.

Beware the Bock

2011-12-17T18:44:00.000-06:00

I bought some Novi Bock from the Woodman Brewery tonight. It was skunk. Someone on Rate Beer had the same experience a few days ago. I don't know if we're talking a bad batch or if it has just been on the shelf too long/was handled improperly.

What a waste because I think there was a tasty helles bock hidden in there.

Iron Works Alt from Metropolitan

2011-12-17T18:37:00.000-06:00

The altbier is the official bier of Düsseldorf. From what I've read, the volk there are quite proud of the city's standard-bearer and a good way to get a Teutonic smackdown is to wander into a local tavern and order a Kölsch. I have never been there and my memory comports with that of a commenter who says that no alts from Düsseldorf have been seen in Madison for ages. The moral of this story is that, when it comes to judging domestic altbiers on their conformity to the “real” thing, I am not your man.

Altbiers don't seem to get a lot of love here in Wisconsin, as near as I can tell. Tyranena brews one as does BluCreek. New Glarus and Rush River both had limited release alts that were more like stickes, i.e. - a bigger, stronger altbier. And that's about it as far as breweries that bottle go. (Any others that I have missed?)

At the risk of pissing off sticklers for style, I'll say that altbiers are a hybrid in that they are brewed with top-fermenting yeast but are cold conditioned. They're a brown ale on one hand and a lager on the other.

Metropolitan Brewing in Chicago brews German-style biers and their latest annual is Iron Works Alt.

Iron Works pours a deep copper color and you get a fairly substantial head that lingers. It being winter, my nose is often stuffy so I wasn't able to an optimal whiff but the aroma was of caramel along – almost fruity - with a grassy hop scent to boot.

Unlike other domestic altbiers that I've had, this stuff has a comparatively light body. BluCreek's version is a good example of one that is heavy, syrupy on the tongue. The caramel aroma returns in the flavor but it is balanced by the spiciness of the hops as well as the lager crispness. This is not a very hoppy beer, although I suppose that's relative in this day and age of 100+ IBU brews.

In addition to be a hybrid style-wise, I find that Iron Works is a hybrid in terms of servability. I have been drinking this stuff the latter half of this year and find that the light body and dry finish make it very refreshing in warmer weather but that the high malt aspect of the profile also makes it eminently drinkable in colder weather.

Junk food pairing: During a recent Packer game I found that Iron Works goes great with nuts freshly cracked from the shell, especially pecans and hazelnuts. And last night I discovered that it is just swell with a some chunks of Musa's Hot Albanian Sausage. Who knew that someone made Albanian sausage here in Madison?

I also want to note the existence of the altbier glass or Becher.

I do so for the sake of completeness and that it allows me to go off on a rant.

These are like Kölsch glasses in that they are cylindrical with straight sides but they're shorter and wider. And I'd bet that the only alt glasses in Madison are in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”. Belgian beers always seem to get the correct tulip glass or chalice yet my Kölsch and altbiers come in pints instead of a stange or Becher. Until alts get more popular I won't expect the proper glass, but times are tough so at least give me my Kölsch in the correct glass so it doesn't get warm while I'm drinking it and you can hire Köbes to keep it filled and help the unemployment situation. It's a win-win proposition.

Goodbye Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T09:23:00.002-06:00

Christopher Hitchens succumbed to esophageal cancer yesterday.

Vanity Fair's editor Graydon Carter has a nice memoriam while Slate has some of his greatest hits.

I'll be raising a glass of Johnny Walker Black at some point this weekend.

Sprecher's Silver Anniversary Brew: Kriek Lambic

2011-12-15T09:15:00.001-06:00

I don't recall seeing Sprecher's 25th Anniversary Kriek on Madison's store shelves in 2010, the actual anniversary year, so I was surprised to see some at Woodman's last weekend. It also surprises me that the brewery would celebrate the quarter century mark by brewing a kriek instead of a German style brew considering the brewery's name and the fact that it has earned its reputation with its lagers. I suppose Belgian ales are all the rage now and there's nothing wrong with Sprecher brewing one up.

When I poured, I got a small, fleeting head. But it's highly carbonated and tiny bubbles clung to the side of the glass. It's a nice deep ruby color but looks even darker when sitting in your favorite flagon. Cherry growers in Door County must be happy these days because every Wisconsin brewer that uses the fruit seems eager to say they're from Door County on the label. And so it is here. Thusly it's not surprising to find out that you can really smell those cherries in this beer. Plus you get a whiff of what I presume are the Brettanomyces. Overall there's a woody bent to the aroma.

Since this stuff is well-carbonated, you get that bright effervescent feeling on your tongue along with the cherry goodness and a hint of malt. I suspect that, without all those bubbles, this stuff would be on the syrupy side. It isn't long before the sour kicks in. While I liked the sour flavor here, it overpowered the cherry. The fruit and malt flavors dissipated quickly and I was left with this flat sour flavor which stayed in my mouth. This stands in contrast to New Glarus' Belgian Red. In that brew, the flavors are like an old married couple - they fight but they will always be together. The fruit and sour do this pas de deux on your tongue instead of one following the other.

I am willing to concede that I was just drinking old beer. Did anyone taste it last year? But, as it stands, I feel that the Wisconsin Fresh Hop Special Amber would have been a better choice to celebrate the brewery's silver anniversary. It pays homage to the Sprecher tradition while adding a new twist and is, quite frankly, a much better beer.

Junk food pairing: Pair this stuff with Garlic Plantain Chips. I got a bag at Woodman's and they should be available at any of the numerous Mexican grocery stores here in Madison.

Melancholia

2011-12-14T18:27:00.001-06:00

Lars von Trier's Melancholia is the second film I've seen in the past several days that features a mysterious planet making its way to Earth, the first being Another Earth. (It is also the second film I've seen this fall featuring a Pieter Bruegel painting. See also The Mill and the Cross.) Instead of being a carbon copy of Earth, the planet here is different and called Melancholia. We first encounter it in an opening prelude which also introduces us to sisters Justine and Claire as well some foreshadowing of events that unfold later.

The screen fades in from darkness as a prelude from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde plays and Justine's (Kirsten Dunst) face appears. Her eyes slowly open revealing a doleful visage that glares back at you while birds tumble lifelessly from the sky. We cut to other images including Justine clad in her wedding gown lying in a stream and staring up into the sky and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a boy, and Justine all standing in a row with a mansion behind them with the sun, moon, and the new planet above. One rather harrowing image is of Claire carrying a child in her arms as she runs across a golf course in the rain. With each step her boots sink several inches into the grass. Another features Justine in profile walking along grass as tendrils emanating from off screen curl round her ankles turning a leisurely stroll into a hard slog. Amidst these scenes are shots of the eponymous planet slowly making its way to Earth. The final shot here is of Pieter Bruegel's 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow which is consumed by fire.

Part I of the film is called "Justine" and chronicles her wedding reception. It begins with her and the groom, Michael, in the back of a stretch limousine that is unable to tack a sharp curve on a gravel road. This is an immediate link to the prelude and a recurring theme – impediments making it difficult, if not impossible, to move forward. They are able to laugh this off but things get much more serious when they finally arrive and are chastised by Claire who ushers them inside the mansion holding the program for the evening which was, no doubt, devised by a very expensive wedding planner.

This first part of the movie chronicles Justine's decent into despair and her mostly dysfunctional family. As the night wears on, it proves more and more difficult for her to keep a smile on her face. Justine escapes the reception several times which only serves to anger her family, especially brother-in-law John who reminds everyone that he spent a lot of money on it. Justine and Claire's parents verbally spar at dinner with their mother denouncing the institution of marriage. The father is rather indifferent to it all. As her depression worsens through the night, Justine looks to her parents for help but is turned away. Claire and Michael are sympathetic to her plight but don't know how to help. Sis is too preoccupied with trying to make sure John's money is well-spent while hubby can only offer an apple orchard as a gift to ward off the melancholia.

Dunst gives a great performance here. As someone who has been in Michael's shoes, Justine felt real to me. The sleeping, wanting to be alone one minute and then asking for help the next – it was all eerily familiar to me. (And yes, some depressed people really do wander off to go practice smiling alone before returning to crowds.) It was also very sad to see so many people not understand her predicament or even try to.

While Justine dealt with her melancholia, she is also the first to notice the planet of the same name. John, who knows something of the heavens, dismisses it by saying that it is simply the star Antares. Justine is oddly attracted to it - she even leaves the reception to take a stroll outside to view it – but the planet figures most prominently in the second half of the film.

Yet there is a scene worth noting from the first half. Justine has left the party and gone into a study that has these shelves with elastic bands stretching across the front that are meant to display open books. On the shelves are art book displaying more modern paintings and Claire replaces them with those showing older pieces. One of those is Bruegel's The Hunters in the Snow along with his The Land of Cockaigne and John Everett Millais' Ophelia, which features the subject lying in a stream on her back looking upwards. (Recall that she did not make it out of Hamlet alive.) Ophelia may have inspired one of the shots in the prelude but it is The Hunters in the Snow that is shown to us directly in it and which draws it to a close. Its muted colors surely provided a template for the look of the prelude and its disappointed, empty-handed hunters mirror Justine, if not most of her family.

The painting figures in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris and this is echoed in part 2 when we are given shots of Melancholia as it draws nearer to the Earth.

Part II of the film is entitled "Claire". Sometime after the wedding, Claire, John, and their son, Leo, are living their lives in the mansion they call home. But Justine is not well and she takes a taxi out to join them. She has gotten worse. She won't eat nor bathe and sleep takes up most of her time. Since the wedding, the planet Melancholia has drawn ever closer to Earth and Claire is disturbed by the possibility that it will collide with the Earth. John tries to calm her fears but she feeds them by looking at the websites of doomsayers who claim that Melancholia will miss on its initial pass but will slingshot around in a "dance of death" and hit our blue ball.

Eventually Justine begins to emerge from her torpor. One night she wanders out and lies naked by the side of a river as she basks in the Melancholia's glow. On another day she and Claire take horses out for a ride. It is foggy outside and we see them ride down a long road in a rare aerial shot. Justine's steed, Abraham, refuses to cross a bridge no matter how she urges him on. (Again we have the notion of not being able to move forward.) Justine looks up and sees Melancholia hanging in the sky. This scene is notable for a couple reasons. First is that Wagner's music returns. Outside of the prelude, it has eschewed diagetic music until this point. The second reason is that, after this, Justine changes. She doesn't become happy but she sheds her sluggishness. At the dinner table she no longer looks like she is trying to retreat from world. She eats but looks on with a dispassionate curiosity with an anger bubbling underneath which comes to the surface on a second ride. The sisters are once again at the bridge and Abraham refuses to cross. Justine's anger is unleashed as she beats the horse mercilessly with her crop. It suffers the blows and then squats down defeated. (This is also a reflection of the prelude which shows the horse alone at night squatting down in extreme slow motion.) Eventually this anger morphs into a calm resignation. "The Earth is evil," she says. "We don't need to grieve for it. Nobody will miss it."

Without wanting to give away the ending I will defend von Trier's conceit of naming the new planet Melancholia. It is an apt metaphor. John tells us that no one noticed it before because it was hidden behind the sun just as people suffering from depression hide their sorrows behind forced smiles and fake sunny dispositions. The scenes with Melancholia looming in the sky are a wonderful visual metaphor for just how imposing and all-consuming a problem depression is (and recall Solaris as well). Claire is fearful of the planet and this perhaps mirrors her feelings towards Justine. At a couple points in the film when Justine can't put on her sunny face Claire cries out "Sometimes I hate you so much!" She fears her sister's inability to keep a happy face and thusly destroy her own plans for a neat, orderly bourgeois life.

Melancholia is a difficult film and that seeing it again may help me make more connections between the prologue and the rest of it. I would pay attention more closely to when we hear Wagner on the soundtrack. There are also unanswered questions such as why Leo calls Justine "Auntie Steelbreaker", why he wants to make caves with her, and what Justine means when she says "I know things." But I suspect there are no concrete explanations to be had.

Hallelujah Corporations

2011-12-14T08:41:00.001-06:00

Handel would be proud.

Doctor Who: Illegal Alien by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry

2011-12-13T14:10:00.003-06:00

Illegal Alien was originally submitted as a story idea for the Seventh Doctor while the show was still on the air. However, its cancellation put the kibosh on that idea and it was instead turned into a novel for the BBC's Past Doctor Adventures several years later. It probably would have worked well on the TV show although some of the gore would have been removed in addition to things being pared down for time.

It is November 1940 and the Blitz is on. Irish-American Cody McBride has fled trouble and his life, more generally, back in Chicago for the friendly confines of London where he tortures his liver and eeks out a living as a private dick. In addition to the Luftwaffe, the city's denizens have to contend with a serial killer dubbed The Limehouse Lurker. One night McBride sees an odd light in the sky and tracks down the location where it crashed. There he discovers a silver orb. Opening, it emits a blinding light causing McBride to fall unconscious.

He awakes to find that Major Lazonby of British Intelligence had the sphere hauled away while he has the same done to him by Inspector Mullen of the London police. Lazonby is all business and military procedure in the name of the queen and country. For his part, Mullen is simply trying to keep a little order amidst the Blitz and sees McBride as an impediment. Our detective returns to his office where The Doctor and Ace drop in for a visit. Meanwhile a businessman named Peddler gets a visit from a gentleman named Wall and his very tall preternatural tough guys. Soon after Wall and his associates leave unsatisfied, our captain of industry meets his maker in a most gruesome manner.

And thusly are most of the major players introduced. The cover of the book has a Cyberman on it –Second Doctor Era – so the orb is a dead giveaway. However, Tucker and Perry do a fine job of having them lie low – but in the open. Cybermen usually stay out of sight underground somewhere and bide their time until the right moment arrives. Here, though, they are in (relatively) plain view. Wall's tough guys turn out to be Cybermen in disguise and The Limehouse Lurker is really a damaged Cyberleader crushing its victims and rubbing their blood on itself to keep the remaining organic bits in working order. In addition to this bit of hideousness, there is a rather disturbing scene where The Doctor is poking around a laboratory where victims are being transmogrified into Cybermen and he finds a baby that is nearly a newborn Cybermat.

Illegal Alien makes many an overture to noir with McBride and a London during the blackouts that provides plenty of darkness. Missing, however, is a femme fatale. This really isn't a problem as the noir business is an added flavor not the main dish here. McBride isn't the most interesting character but he's a good person underneath the stoic exterior and behind the booze. His contacts in the London crime underworld lead us to George Limb, an elderly gentleman with even more contacts - even some highly placed ones in government. I appreciated how Tucker and Perry portray him as a kindly old man but always with a hint of mystery and menace. You're never really sure what side he's on until the end.

McBride is also friends with "Mama", the proprietor of a tavern of the same name. He too is an American ex-pat only he is an African-American. This was an interesting little touch. Firstly, it led to a neat little conversation about baseball in which The Doctor reminisces about having seen Babe Ruth in action as well as having attended many Negro League games. The injection of some American culture, including the Pittsburgh Crawfords which will be obscure to most readers, was a nice contrast to an otherwise very English setting with mostly very English (white) characters. Secondly, having a black character was neat in that it just went outside of expectations. Although not developed on TV, a defining moment of Ace's life was when her black friend Manisha was killed after some racist bastards firebombed her home. While Mama didn't have a large role, I am hoping that it foreshadows a more colorful future.

Illegal Alien takes place sometime after the terminal episode of the Seventh Doctor's run on television. While it was the first Eighth Doctor PDA to be published, it is the third of that series chronologically. So I'm not exactly sure how these novels attempt to build on Ace's character when we last saw her on TV. However, here she is portrayed as having matured. OK, Ace would not be Ace if she weren't impetuous and she most definitely is here as illustrated during the scene where Wall and his Cyber-cronies are getting away in a truck only to have our heroine give chase and stow away on the truck's frame underneath. But she also spends some time looking back and reevaluating as when she thinks of her grandmother and puts herself in her shoes in an attempt to understand how living through the horrors of war shape a person. Ace is still young – she can never get barkeeps to serve her – and foolish but she's turning a corner.

All in all Illegal Alien was a boatload of fun. The Cybermen were appropriately menacing and of course there were Nazis. I'm sure there are tons of references to previous stories both from TV and novels but I only managed to pick up on a few. For example, The Doctor mentions the Daleks invading Earth as they did in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" while Ace refers to her grandmother whom we met in "The Curse of Fenric" as well as her friends from her hometown of Perivale who featured in "Survival".

However, there's no Nitro 9 here as per The Doctor's effort to cut down on anachronisms. Bummer.

Another Earth

2011-12-12T13:14:00.003-06:00

What if you looked up in the sky one day and saw a beautiful blue ball that looked exactly like the one on which we live. And then you learned that it is inhabited with doppelgängers of everyone on your Earth. What would think? How would you feel?

This should have been the premise of Another Earth.

The movie introduces us to Rhoda, as played by the lovely Brit Marling. She is on the cusp of adulthood and is looking forward to beginning the next phase of her life at MIT where she will study astrophysics. Rhoda is driving home after a party when it is blared over the radio that a new planet which looks a lot like Earth is newly visible in the sky. She looks out her window to catch a glimpse of the orb. Distracted, she misses a stop sign and her car collides with another that is stopped at the intersection. In this car is John (William Mapother), a music professor and conductor, along with his wife and young son. Rhoda emerges from the wreckage in a daze and discovers that the boy was thrown from the car, through the windshield, and out onto the curb.

Rhoda does her time in jail and, upon release, moves back in with her parents. She finds work as a janitor at a local school. One day she gets the courage to go to John's home and apologize. The problem is that he is in a bad state, letting John Barleycorn wash his blues away. John answers the door in a grumpy state which throws Rhoda off. Instead of apologizing, she says that she's with a cleaning agency and is offering a free trial of their services. Struggling with grief, John's house is surely in need of cleaning. Rhoda does a good job and John hires her to tidy up once a week. Eventually, Rhoda and John develop feelings for one another.

Concomitant to Rhoda's Lady Macbeth routine, that orb in the sky is moving closer. Astronomers have determined that its landmasses are exact copies of those on Earth. In a rather disturbing yet touching scene, a scientist attempts to make radio contact with the planet and discovers that she is talking to her own doppelgänger who recalls memories from their collective past. Rhoda spends some of her free time staring up longingly at the other Earth as it moves closer and looms larger in the sky. She enters a contest to win a flight to the new planet and wins. I won't spoil the ending (not much, anyway) but will say the Rhoda's plan to escape doesn't, well, go exactly as planned.

While Rhoda and John's relationship was endearing, the problem with Another Earth is that it takes a situation (the approach of Earth's clone) with an interesting metaphysical aspect and relegates it to the background where it and its consequences hang around until they're picked when the story requires more metaphor. Rhoda seeks out redemption while John looks to be reborn. Unfortunately this new planet laden with clones of everyone basically provides a metaphor of Rhoda seeking escape and seeking herself but little else. The movie spends too much time showing close-ups of her face. While Marling is a beautiful woman, it got old looking at her visage with its attendant look of despondency fixed upon it. Since Rhoda and John are the only characters who get developed here, I was hoping for a bit more recognition on their parts that, not only was there another Earth above, but also another them. "Wow! That's crazy!" and a few questions were thin gruel for me.

As I said before, I don't want to give away the ending but I will say that I think it suffered because of this. It was nice to see a resolution that didn't resolve anything but its impact was lessened because of the film's refusal to consider the above.

Still, I give the filmmakers tons of credit for making an intelligent exercise in my beloved sci-fi genre instead of a brainless CGI-laden action flick.

Sprecher's Bier und Restaurant & Mehr Bier

2011-12-12T11:13:00.001-06:00

Last Friday I took the family over to Sprecher's Restaurant und Pub. We were celebrating The Dulcinea's record of acing exams and the end of the workweek. In addition to sustenance, I lucked out as they had some of Sprecher's Wisconsin Fresh Hop Amber Lager. It's their Special Amber aged on a bed of Wisconsin Cascade hops.

We didn't have a camera and the lighting in the restaurant was dim and yellow so I can't give a great description of its appearance. However, it looked nice and amber as the beer usually does but was a bit hazy. It tasted a lot like your normal Special Amber at first with the lager crispness and complementary hop bitterness but, as the beer goes back, you get this wonderful floral hop rush. More on the sweet side like honeysuckle than, say, a rose. I really enjoyed it.

As for the food, I had schnitzel while The D and the kid had the fish fry. It was schweineschnitzel (pork, not veal) and it was serviceable. It is served with a creamy lemon sauce with capers and I take this as to explain why the breading was so bland. While it had the requisite amount of salt, I felt it could have used some pepper, dry mustard, and maybe some thyme. I guess everyone seasons their schnitzel breading differently. Still, a little would have been good as I prefer to go with straight lemon juice on my schnitzel instead of a sauce. The fish was nice'n'crispy. The cheesy mashed potatoes were good and I like the cole slaw as well. However, my seasonal vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower) were mush as if they'd been sitting in a steam tray for hours.

The food won't bring me back but it's nice that they carry limited edition Sprecher beers and that I can stop there and get a growler. They also have a seasonal red apple soda as well.

I've noticed that the Whistle Stop now bottles their beer and have seen it at Woodman's. Their Kölsch-style brew is made with pistachios and sounds intriguing but the only brew of theirs I've had is the New Zealand Pilsner, a "lager featuring the grains and hops from Down Under".

I don't know what type of hops are in this beer nor if there are any adjunct grains. But I liked it as did my friend with whom I shared a bottle. It certainly isn't your typical pilsner. It basically tasted like one at first but the crispness is overcome by some malt sweetness followed by a hoppy aftertaste. It was like all the components of a pils were there just not in the right order and/or proportions. The usual malt-hops balancing act was weighted in favor of the former. It was odd, but I liked it.

My last tidbit of beer news is this:

Introducing TAP X: Nelson Sauvin from Schneider USA on Vimeo.

This is a promo for Tap X: Nelson Sauvin by German brewer Schneider Weisse. SW is perhaps the premier brewer of weiss bier. They've been doing it for 100+ years and their Avenitus, a wheat doppelbock, is considered by many to be the ne plus ultra of its style.

Tap X refers to a new line of limited edition annual brews and the inaugural edition is a weiss bier with Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand and Belgian yeast. I've read that limited shipments are going to the East Coast and California only so we apparently won't be getting any here in flyover country.

The video is interesting. Brewmaster Hans-Peter Drexler says that the Reinheitsgebot isn't really limiting as there are countless varieties of hops and yeasts out there. And those are some mega (open) fermentation tanks.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

2011-12-09T13:45:00.002-06:00

I saw The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 with my father-in-law, Henry, this week. He was involved in the Civil Rights movement and even knew Stokely Carmichael back in the mid-60s when they were both involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. This past summer Henry pointed out the street corner where he was arrested by a white cop who didn't appreciate a black man trying to get other blacks registered to vote. I knew it was going to be interesting.

The film, as the title suggests, is a compilation of footage recorded 1967-1975 by Swedish television crews who were dispatched to America to report on the Civil Rights movement and the ongoing racial strife. A disclaimer is given to audiences straight away saying that the film doesn't purport to tell the whole story of the Black Power Movement but merely how those Swedish reporters saw it at the time. One can also argue that it also relates how the editors in the 21st century view what happened.

It follows a narrative which shows a view of the Black Power Movement and then proceeds to chronicle its demise as internal strife, harassment from the Federal government, and rugs all take their toll. We start at a diner in Hallandale, Florida. The patrons are all white and the owner is being interviewed. He says that America is a place of freedom where anyone can earn a living if they just put their mind to it. The crew then travels down the road to the poorer black side of town where a couple veterans confess to how difficult it is to find a job because of the color of their skin. Stokely Carmichael makes an appearance early on where he is giving a speech in which he labels the non-violent approach of Martin Luther King, Jr. as ineffective because white America has no conscience to which blacks can appeal.

Soon enough MLK and RFK are assassinated and the Black Power Movement gains more steam. There is some great footage shot at the Black Panther headquarters in Oakland. One disturbing scene is a room full of children singing, "Pick up a gun, put the pig on the run." However, it is also noted that the Black Panthers gave out free breakfasts and free medical care. That the Federal government started its own breakfast programs at schools was noted as a legacy of the Black Panthers.

In 1969 Carmichael fled FBI harassment for Africa. The following year Angela Davis was arrested after Jonathan Jackson took hostages in a California courthouse using guns registered to her. An interview with Davis from jail is one of the most powerful moments in the film. The interviewer asks her about the use of violence by the Black Power Movement and she goes into a lengthy rant beginning with "When someone asks me about violence, I find it incredible. A person asking that can have no idea about what black people have gone through in this country." Davis is furious and looks like she's about to burst as she talks about her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama and the city's Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor, who was infamous for having his police use fire hoses to disperse peaceful protestors. Like Carmichael, Davis is charismatic, well-spoken, and a very powerful speaker.

As the film moves into the 1970s, it gets terribly depressing and the situation begins to look very contemporary. The sections on Harlem show the tragedy of drug addiction on a personal level as well as on the community. More than one person voices the opinion that, not only did drugs tear apart black unity, but also that the drugs were introduced by the government. An interview with a prostitute looking to better her life brings a glimmer of hope as does one with Lewis Michaux at his bookstore where he extols the virtue of knowledge. But, for me, it was just too sad to see a community wracked by drugs and violence and know that many black communities today are still in that quagmire.

Director Göran Olsson utilizes voiceover narration in the film but he wisely doesn't show us any talking heads. Instead the person's name is shown in the upper left-hand corner as they speak over the archival footage. It's done like a DVD commentary track with some of the speakers referring to images on the screen or to reactions they had seeing this footage for the first time. Relative youngsters like Erykah Badu and Talib Kweli talk about what they get out of looking back at history while the likes of Harry Belafonte and Angela Davis reminisce about the history that they made. Kweli remarks that he was once pulled off a plane and questioned by authorities for listening to a speech by Carmichael, which in this post-9/11 era is not surprising but is still disturbing.

This kind of voiceover had a meta flavor to it and this was enhanced during a scene in which the film crew interviews the editor of TV Guide who had written critically of Swedish television saying that their coverage of the United States was anti-American because it didn't showcase all the good things here. I appreciated these little instances of metaness rearing their head because it chipped away at conventional views of documentary. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 took the old convention of talking heads espousing the objective truth and made things more personal, more subjective.

When the lights came up there was this look on Henry's face. During the film I occasionally heard a "mmm hmmm" from his direction and I asked him if it had brought back a lot of memories. He said it had and that it made him laugh, feel sad & angry, and even made him want to cry. We went to dinner so we could chat some more. He told me stories of working for civil rights in Tennessee, of how awful things were in Birmingham, of living in New York during the late 60s, and what it was like in Montgomery during the Bus Boycott.

The last thing he told to me before our conversation turned to family matters was that he could never get behind armed resistance a la the Black Panthers because there was no chance for an armed minority against a majority with even more guns. But, he added, he did live for a spell armed with a rifle and pistol for protection.

Why Does Rob Thomas Ignore the Madison Polish Film Festival?

2011-12-08T16:18:00.003-06:00

The Madison Polish Film Festival is a bifurcated affair this year with the first round of films being shown 19-20 November. In his weekly "What's playing in Madison theaters this week" blog post dated 17 November Rob Thomas of 77 Square neglected to mention the festival. I emailed him at the time asking about the omission but never heard back.

And so it's not totally surprising that in his blog today there is yet again no mention of part 2 of the festival. Now that I look, I see no mention of it in Isthmus either. (Wait, I see it on their webpage in the Critics Choice spot but nothing in the Movies section.)

Harumph.

Here are the details:

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10
MARQUEE THEATER; Union South

3:00 pm
Wonderful Summer directed by Ryszard Brylski (2011)
83 min, Polish with English subtitles

The plot follows the typical outline of a romantic comedy but the setting of funeral homes and cemeteries gives it a dark atmosphere. The lead character Kika has a peculiar gift: she can communicate with the ghost of her dead mother. The mother visits her on a mission to make sure her daughter does not miss out on true love for the boy next door.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11
MARQUEE THEATER; Union South

7:00 pm Winner directed by Wiesław Saniewski (2011)
111min, English and Polish with English subtitles

Oliver is a talented young pianist of Polish American heritage. After breaking off his European tournée, he is forced to repay the tour organizers 250 thousand Euros. An accidental meeting with his former math teacher and avid horse track gambler helps him find his way in life.

Atheists Apparently Can't Handle the Truth

2011-12-08T14:11:00.001-06:00

Speaking of contempt for non-believers on the part of Christians, there's a revealing letter to the editor in the new Isthmus.

The past few weeks have seen a mole hill being made into a mountain in the Letters section over Kenneth Burns' review of Higher Ground with some people disputing Psalm 137:9. Burns was critical of the film for how it utilized that particular passage which it quotes. In today's issue one Warren Brown of Menasha steps up to the soap box.

His exegetical powers are limitless and his contempt for non-believers is seemingly without end as well as he states that atheists can't understand the Bible.

This is the trouble that arises when someone who can read but does not believe tries to read the Bible. You may understand the words, but you don't understand the message.

What a maroon. Why is it that, if only believers are smart enough to bypass the Biblical encryption to understand the message, Christians take away different messages from the Bible?

I am reminded of a spat Jerry Coyne had with Andrew Sullivan. It related to the above and an earlier bit of Brown's letter where he writes:

Yes, we Christians do consider the Bible the word of God, but we are not so absurd as to think that every saying in the Bible is God's truth.

Really? What about Ken Ham and other Biblical literalists who go around insisting that, not only was there a guy named Noah who built an arc, but that there were dinosaurs on the arc?

So how do people like Andrew Sullivan and Warren Brown actually go about deciding what is Yahweh's "truth" and what isn't?

Take passages from, say, Deuteronomy, where Yahweh is in a genocidal mood. You have apologists like Paul Copan who seem to share Brown's attitude of "atheists just don't understand" but you also have theologians like William Lane Craig who take the pro-genocide stance. Who is "right" here? Who has comprehended Yahweh's "truth"?

Brown's letter is the height of conceit. Only believers can understand the Bible and, furthermore, they have this additional super-power that allows them to cherry pick what is true and what isn't from the Bible.

Burns replies to Brown and says that his priest taught that "Christians should take troubling Bible passages seriously." What does this mean? Leviticus has its famous invectives against homosexuality. What does taking "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" seriously involve? Should Christians take the admonition to not covet thy neighbor's ox seriously?

I feel like the woodcutter in Rashomon.

You Can Call Me Faithless

2011-12-08T12:42:00.000-06:00

The Root has a good article by Prof. Tommie Shelby called "I Didn't Lose Faith. I Just Don't Have It". He explains how he lost his faith but what struck me was how he described people's reactions to his atheism.

I just don't see the justification for carving out a special exception for religious beliefs as convictions that require no reasons or evidence. Not only does faith not ground theism, but it also can't help you decide which of the vast array of religious doctrines, if any, to accept. It would be like flipping a coin.

Many black people with whom I've talked about this, including some people I love, find my rejection of faith baffling or frightening. Some feel sorry for me. Others suspect that my atheism is rooted in disappointment with a particular church or with organized religion in general, in a desire to be free to sin without guilt or in anger toward God for his failure to help when I or my people needed him most.

No doubt some feel that it just confirms their belief that higher education (and the study of philosophy in particular) is a destroyer of faith and distances black youths from the venerable traditions of their people. What the black believers I know rarely do is engage seriously with my reasons for nonbelief. Instead of regarding me as someone with whom they have an honest disagreement, as someone they can perhaps persuade, they look upon me with contempt or pity.

This reminds me of the guys who preach out on Library Mall. They use the word "love" a lot but are really contemptuous of passers-by who are treated to threats about going to hell and intimations that they are too stupid to understand that someone died on a cross for them.

Sometimes

2011-12-08T12:15:00.001-06:00

Ridley Scott on How to See Movies

2011-12-08T11:56:00.000-06:00

Since I quoted Terry Gilliam yesterday, I'll quote Ridley Scott today from an article at HuffPo:

"In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture."

Absolutely goddamn right.

Reading this reminded me of a brief conversation I had with Wisconsin Film Festival director Meg Hamel last year. I had asked her if she would consider screening a film I cannot remember at this year's festival. She said that she probably wouldn't because the movie would be out on DVD by the time of the festival.

First, as Scott notes, seeing a movie on DVD is not the optimal experience. There is no home theatre system that can compare to a huge screen and a great surround sound system in a theatre. If a festival is about celebrating movies, then it should also be about seeing them as the filmmakers intend.

Plus it ignores the fact that the festival screens restorations of classic films that are available on DVD already and, I believe, local productions that have been for sale as well.

But I'm also sympathetic to Hamel's plight of having to juggle many considerations when programming the WFF. The thing is, gone are the days when all movies have strictly staggered releases on various media. More and more movies are available on-demand on cable concurrently with a theatrical run. DVD/BluRay release dates are also moving closer to theatrical runs and I've seen smaller, independent movies out on DVD at the same time it is getting a roadshowing.

There are many ways for a movie to reach an audience - cinemas, on-demand, cable channels like HBO, streaming services, DVD - and the idea that a movie starts in the cinema, wears out its welcome, and then moves on to the next outlet is quickly becoming outdated. Hopefully Hamel and the other WFF organizers will relegate DVD availability lower on their list of criteria for inclusion in the WFF to allow great films to be screened here in Madison in the way that the filmmaker intended.

Chicago TARDIS 2011: The Rest

2011-12-08T10:36:00.001-06:00

On Saturday The D and I attended the "Is Doctor Who Feminist?" panel which featured Janet Fielding who played Tegan back in the early 1980s. She was accompanied by Robert Smith? and Lynne Thomas, both fans and writers.

(Photo from Chicago TARDIS Facebook page.)

The program said that Fielding had "strong opinions on this topic" but I had no idea just how strong. I learned that she retired from acting only to work with Women in Film and Television UK as well as become an agent for actors. She approached the subject from the point of view of an actor. This caused a bit of friction with Thomas, one of the editors of Chicks Dig Time Lords. Fielding was very opinionated in a way that bordered on strident while Thomas is much more reserved.

The friction started after Thomas made some comments about how she admired Tegan as a character for standing up to The Doctor and taking the lead to do things that she thinks need to be done. Fielding replied by saying, "Are you on drugs?!" and explained that the Classic Series was horrible as far as roles for women. One person here is talking as a woman and a fan while the other is talking as a woman and an actress.

Fielding's rant, which is what it was, was fantastic. She said that actresses who starred in DW, with Louise Jameson who played Leela, being the exception, were typecast after they left the show and couldn't get any good parts. While their characters might have had interesting professions, the actresses themselves didn't get opportunities to show their chops. They didn't **do** enough and spent too much time asking The Doctor questions so that he could explain things to the audience. Sadly she related how her male clients received far more work than her female ones. Fielding gave the New Series lots of props for having female characters that do things. She credited this to the shorter format.

Catherine Tate (a.k.a. – Donna Noble) got a lot of love from Ms. Fielding as well. In addition to lauding her for simply being an incredibly talented and funny woman, Fielding appreciated that DW brought on an older woman for a major role. By older she meant a woman who wasn't in her early 20s. (And not a size 0.)

I was rather indifferent to Donna as a companion but did think she got screwed over when she left the show with that awful mind erasing routine. I don't know what it was but Donna was pretty meh for me. I don't think it's age because, well, she's much closer to my age than Martha, Rose, or Amy and Maggie Stables is older than Tate yet her companion, Evelyn Smythe, is a great foil for the 6th Doctor in the audio dramas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We really enjoyed a session with Rob Shearman.

(Yep, from the CT Facebook page.)

The D absolutely adores Mr. Shearman and eagerly snatches up his books. He did a dramatic reading of one of his short stories and it was fantastic. I don't know which story he read but it concerned a stewardess who treated the passengers of a flight to her lovelorn ramblings. It was at points rather funny but also tender and bittersweet in its meditation on love. I'll have to read one of his books soon.

Rob is goofy and very friendly and it's a pleasure to see him at Chicago TARDIS each year. After the session I told him that I gave Des, my 16-year old stepson, a copy of Chimes of Midnight, a DW audio drama that he wrote and that Des loved it. He is now looking to make his own DW audio dramas. Rob was pleased and remarked that one of the great things about DW fandom is how it is a springboard for creative activity whether it be costuming, fan fic, etc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll have to wrap up my CT 2011 post mortem here. Check out the costumes here. The emcee was a Roger Delgado Master and he was a hoot. That Quark costume ruled.

Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, and Matthew Waterhouse were a stitch.

The panel "How Doctor Who Changed My Life" was both interesting and touching. One participant noted that fellow DW fans provide her with her true friends and that the character of The Doctor has allowed her to understand her sexuality better. Another related how at home she feels at CT as well as how her love of DW helps her cope with depression. The final panelist also said that her fandom helps with depression and has inspired her to return to school to study film and turn her life around. I offered to chat about what a hoopy frood Gregg Toland was with her next year.

I spent more money than I thought I would on Virgin and BBC books that were published in the 1990s & 2000s but my collection is coming along nicely. In fact, I think I bought more of those books than the rest of the attendees combined. While I'd like to attend a panel on them, I am not going to hold my breath.

Next year is going to be a 7th Doctor Spectacular. I met Sophie Aldred here in Madison last year and she was great. Super friendly. So CT 2012 should be a hoot. Plus I think Des is going to attend as well. His first DW con.

I have decided that, if I ever decide to cosplay at CT, I want to dress as a Vervoid. Should be easy. All I'd have to do is hang out by the fake plants in the hotel lobby.

Terry Gilliam on Inception

2011-12-07T15:04:00.002-06:00

This comment from Terry Gilliam about the movie Inception was spot on for me:

"With ’Inception,’ I wondered why all of the dreams were action movies. Don’t people have other dreams?"

Check out the rest of the article. I think he explains why I was bored watching Sucker Punch this past weekend.

Chicago TARDIS 2011: 31+ Years

2011-12-07T11:55:00.001-06:00

This year was a 5th Doctor celebration and so Peter Davison was there as was Janet Fielding (Tegan). Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) showed up as well as a last minute replacement for Sarah Sutton (Nyssa). It had been a long time since I had watched any 5th Doctor episodes and so The D and I took in "Snakedance". It is a sequel to "Kinda" and these two episodes vie for the title of Best 5th Doctor Episode with a lot of fans. Screenwriter Christopher Bailey, a Buddhist, incorporated some Buddhist elements into the stories and wrote some very surreal bits into them as well. I really appreciate the sense of menace imbued in these stories – it just doesn't let up.

The 5th Doctor was the first to come along after I became cognizant of the regeneration thing. I first saw Tom Baker episodes on Chicago's PBS affiliate WTTW. At some point – I believe it was during a pledge drive – I heard the announcement that the station had acquired some of the latest episodes featuring the 5th Doctor and I was thrilled. So I have a soft spot for Peter Davison.

I attended a panel called "From Castrovalva to Androzani, and Every Point in Between" which was a general discussion of the 5th Doctor era.

(Photo from the Chicago TARDIS Facebook page.)

Graeme Burk did the bulk of the chatting here and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the show. I suppose this is to be expected since he used to edit the DW Information Network's newsletter, Enlightenment. It was just a fun panel for me, although it did make me feel bad for not having watched any 5th Doctor episodes in a while. "Kinda" and "Snakedance" garnered a lot of praise but I was happy to know that others thought highly of "The Visitation" as I do. No one mentioned another of my favorites, "The Awakening". Maypole dancing, a malignant force encased in the wall of a church – what's not to like?

The panel brought back memories of being in 7th grade and a conversation I had with some friends about the best 5th Doctor stories. I remember Lenny going with "Caves of Androzani". Great one. I must really watch it soon.

This reminds me. A documentary about American fandom called Once Upon a Time Lord was screened this year. It was shot in Chicago in 1982 at a DW con called Panopticon West by Denver's PBS station. For some reason, WTTW never aired the program so it got its first screening in the Chicago area this year. It was funny seeing how people dressed at that time and I'm talking normal street clothes, not costumes. Anthony Ainley, who played The Master back in the day, got some screen time and he came across as a really great guy who loved the show as well as the fans. He could chew scenery like nobody's business. He is my Master.

One of the presenters onstage noted the Red, White, Who project which aims to write a book about the history of DW in America and American fandom. Part of the project is a site called Broadwcast which is a wiki devoted to DW in America. It lists when what episodes were shown here in the States. So I looked up Chicago. I recall discovering DW when WTTW was showing Tom Baker episodes at 5:30PM CST during the week. I want to say that the first story I watched was "The Ark in Space" but I am not sure. Regardless, I discovered at the site that I became a DW fan in the February-July timeframe of...

1980

It seemed like a lot of people at the con had gotten into the show in 2006-08. (Was this when BBC America or the Sci-Fi Channel started showing it?) Nothing wrong with that and I have no interest in getting into some New Series fans vs. Classic Series fans type of argument. It simply means that I've been into DW for a long time. Then it hit me. I have been watching DW longer than many of the con attendees have been alive. That really put things in perspective.

Chicago TARDIS 2011: Diversity and the Doctor

2011-12-07T11:04:00.000-06:00

Another Chicago TARDIS has come and gone. But less than a year until the next edition.

I really got a lot out of the fan panels this year so allow me begin with a gripe. We attended one called "Diversity and the Doctor" which asked "How does the current series really stack up in its treatment of anyone who could be considered 'other'?" On the panel was Quiana Howard, a woman of color whom I recognized from past cons because of her wonderful costumes. Let me say this in no uncertain terms:

I was absolutely fucking appalled when she related some of the comments that she received over her Leela costume from last year:

Some people gave her grief saying, essentially, that only white women should cosplay as Leela. WTF? Who are these nimrods? As Grady from The Shining might say, they need to be corrected. It is 2011 and yet some DW fans find themselves in a micro-Kulturkampf over whether it is "appropriate" for a black woman to dress as a white TV character.

Quiana had multiple costumes again this year. Here she is with some other 5th Doctor afficianados.

(Photo found at the making my 11th doctor costume blog.)

For a look at the rest of her outfits from this year, including one of the Rani, check out the DW Cosplay Livejournal page.

Moving on, I think that there was a consensus at this panel that Martha kicked ass. I know that The Dulcinea loved her and Quiana did as well. They both expressed delight at seeing someone like themselves – a woman of color – as a companion of The Doctor. Unfortunately, there also seemed to be a consensus that Martha got a raw deal in terms of how she left the show. Yeah, she did an amazing job of carrying on when The Master was ruling the Earth (this was shown briefly in "Last of the Time Lords" but elaborated upon only in the book The Story of Martha) but the whole unrequited love thing was just weak – too weak for a character of Martha's strength.

There was also agreement that Matt Smith's tenure as The Doctor under executive producer Steven Moffatt is far too alabaster. My impression was that people enjoy the 11th Doctor as well as Amy and Rory but there are hardly even any secondary characters of color. Rita from "The God Complex" was the big exception to the rule. "Battlefield" from 1989 and featuring the 7th Doctor may have had more racial diversity in that one story than all of the last season.

So, Steven Moffatt, put more people of color in DW!

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

2011-12-06T16:08:00.001-06:00

My copy of The Sparrow is one of those enhanced versions with a set of questions for reading groups as well as an interview with author Mary Doria Russell. In the latter we find that Russell returned to religion (converted to Judaism) shortly before writing this book. This isn't surprising since The Sparrow is all about religious faith.

It concerns the Job-like Jesuit priest named Emilio Sandoz. The book opens in December 2059 with Sandoz being released from the hospital and transferred to a private residence to continue his recovery. He is the lone survivor of a Jesuit-sponsored mission to the planet Rakhat and he returned to Earth scarred physically and mentally. Scurvy and malnutrition wreaked havoc on his body during the long voyage home but his hands were mutilated on Rakhat and he is unable to use them. Sandoz is withdrawn as well as angry and bitter. He rebuffs attempts by the Jesuit hierarchy to get his testimony about just what happened on the mission to Rakhat.

Chapters relating to Sandoz's recovery more or less alternate with those that tell the story of how the mission came about and the events that transpired on Rakhat. In 2019 Sandoz, whom we discover is quite adept at learning new languages, is back in the land of his birth – Puerto Rico. Considering that he is a priest, he doesn't seem particularly pious. He has become good friends with Anne and George Edwards who retired there to do some good. Anne works in a hospital while George helps out at the Arecibo Observatory. Also at Arecibo are some friends of the Edwardses': Jimmy Quinn and Sofia Mendes.

One day Jimmy discovers a signal coming from a distant planet and it is revealed to be music of some kind. Sandoz is transformed and becomes convinced that it is a message from God so he approaches the Jesuit higher-ups about funding a mission to the planet which is the source of the transmission. They agree to his plan. Sandoz will be accompanied by Quinn, Mendes, the Edwardses, and a few other Jesuit scientists.

Because what happens on Rakhat is a central mystery of the novel, I won't go into exactly what left Sandoz in his pitiful state. But, the short, (mostly) spoiler-free version is thus. The crew land on the planet and discover that it is rather Edenic with lush, verdant vegetation. This section is on the hard sci-fi side of things with Russell detailing the missionaries' first tentative steps on a new planet and adjusting to a new diet and whatnot. Soon they discover a village inhabited by being known as Runa. However, they are rather "primitive" and not the ones broadcasting music into space. Eventually another alien named Supaari visits the village. Supaari is of another race called the Jana'ata and he is a businessman. After some time of getting to know one another, Supaari brings the humans to Gayjur, the great city where he lives and plies his trade. It is a Jana'ata individual whose singing was heard on Earth.

To paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android, the mission ended in tears. Much of what happened was the result of cultural misunderstandings but Sandoz emerges from the horrors visited upon him and his companions hating God, perhaps having lost his faith, his belief in God. At the beginning of the book his faith was intact but it was based on rather nebulous footing. Anne and George are atheists and Anne amicably discusses spiritual matters with Emilio. He wrestles with his faith. He questions it and basically comes to detente with doubt. Then the music from across the cosmos is heard and he takes it as a sign from God. This is the purpose of his life as ordained by his deity. Then it all comes crashing down.

I don't think Sandoz lost his faith because of the hardships he endured, per se. As it is noted in the book, Jesuits have been tortured and killed in the past while spreading the word. Rather it's the sense that the mission to Rakhat was not divinely inspired or his life's mission that causes Sandoz to lose his faith. It's that he was wrong and that others paid for his mistake.

Russell's take on faith here was, for me, like the wishy-washy BS that Karen Armstrong purveys. She seems to be saying that, at its core, faith is about engaging and being entangled with mystery. Or, perhaps more cynically, faith is the Sisyphean task of attempting to reconcile the unknowable and the unreasonable with reason. As an atheist who has never really had religious devotion – the kind of faith on display here – I find this conclusion to be unsatisfactory. On one hand, I can appreciate that this vision of faith is something that that the faithful struggle with. It's one element of our humanity. But on the other hand, as an atheist, it seems tragic to wrack your brain over what a mythical deity may or may not do or want of you.

Despite my misgivings about the concept of religious faith, I enjoyed The Sparrow immensely. The mystery of what transpired on Rakhat is carried to the end and Russell keeps the reader wanting to know. Plus she creates some great characters. Anne, a godless heathen, is tremendously likable. She is perhaps the lynchpin of the mission and of the group of friends. She holds things together and offers advice. And she can really turn a phrase. Being a godless heathen, Anne presents her own challenge to Emilio. Anne is a good person. She helps others and she is happy. But she doesn't worry about an afterlife or feel compelled to reconcile her existence with an enigma called Yahweh whereas Sandoz does.

Sophia Mendes presents a mirror image of faith. In the future, there are brokers who pick out intelligent children from poor families. The kids are taken away, cared for, and educated. Their sponsors recoup their investment and more over the course of several years when the child has become an adult with a good job. If faith is about dealing with an unknown and unknowable force in your life, then Sophia's predicament is about dealing with a known person who rules over you in very transparent ways. Her salvation, so to speak, comes when her sponsor is paid off. How is her servitude qualitatively different from that of Sandoz's?

Personally, I find these inverted representations of faith more interesting than the predicament of our Jesuit priest.

Are the Folks at Valkyrie Brewing Jethro Tull Fans?

2011-12-06T11:42:00.000-06:00

And your only reply is slàinte mhath...

Central Waters has submitted a new label for approval, a Scotch ale called Slàinte.

I presume we'll see this next year sometime.

Rhinelander Brewing apparently has designs to enter the craft market with Underworld. I like the Cerberus on the label. Is Rhinelander owned by Minhas or do they just contract to have Minhas do their brewing?

Valkyrie Brewing continues to expand their offerings. According to their website, Rubee lager is the only beer they're bottling but Big Swede (Swedish Imperial Stout) and Dragon Blade (American Steamed lager) are available on tap. Big Swede was made when the brewery was Viking and I am wondering if Dragon Blade is simply the new name for Viking's LES Beer.

The site also lists some beer to look for in the future with some returning from the Viking rotation and others being new. Invader (doppelbock) is set to return while War Hammer is Whole Stein redux. Night Wolf, a schwartzbier, was formerly known as Mørketid. Lime Twist retains its old name while Rauch has been renamed Whispering Embers. New beers include Crimson Wonder, a Scotch ale, a weizenbock called Golden Horn, an IIPA made with Galaxy hops called Supernova, and Velvet Green which is a dry Irish stout.

Looking at some of these names I have to wonder if somebody at the brewery is a Jethro Tull fan. For starters, "Velvet Green" is a Tull song. The label for Crimson Wonder is a gold chalice and brings to mind the song "Cup of Wonder". Whispering Embers? Tull has "Fires at Midnight". Invader? See Tull's "Broadsword".

What other names could they use with a Tull connection? How about Songs from the Oud Bruin? Here are some others that come to mind:

Weatherbock
Magus Perdé Porter
Mother Gose
Slip Steam Beer
Dr. Roggenbroom

Dr Who Night Before Christmas

2011-12-06T08:44:00.001-06:00

(h/t Dangerous Minds)

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary

2011-12-05T14:49:00.001-06:00

Considering that my country has been at war with a nebulous band of Muslims called "terrorists" for 10+ years, I'd have thought that I would have read something like Tamim Ansary's Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes a lot sooner than I did. Growing up, Islam is not something I gave much thought to. I had a classmate whose family was from, I think, Saudi Arabia. Her parents spoke Arabic but I really didn't think much of this because other classmates would go home to parents who spoke Chinese, Polish, and Spanish. I simply knew that not everyone's family spoke English all the time. As I grew older, my impressions of the Middle East and Islam were mostly shaped by news reports of Muslims hijacking the Achille Lauro, blowing up Pan Am Flight 103, and bombing Marine barracks in Beirut. Oh, and various rich men in OPEC. I don't think I held it that all Muslims were oil barons or terrorists but rather that there's a lot of oil and violence over there with "over there" being the operative words. Islam just never seemed to encroach on these shores.

Of course 9/11 changed all that. And while I meant to learn more about the Middle East and Islam in the wake of those events, I never did. Luckily Ansary wrote Destiny Disrupted and my partner urged me to read it. Ansary was born in Afghanistan but moved here to the U.S. in his teens so he has one foot in the West and the other in the Islamic world and this gives him a valuable perspective. He is a gifted writer but not a historian. This too gives him a valuable perspective but it's one that works both ways.

Destiny Disrupted is aimed at ignorant people like myself who want to learn more about the Islamic world, the world which spawned Osama bin Laden and where our troops are fighting wars. He seems to be saying, "You want some context? Well, I'll give you context. 1,400 years worth of the stuff." But, in a larger sense, he is attempting to illuminate one strand of the great tapestry of human history. As he notes, "Islam can be seen as one world history among many that are unfolding simultaneously, each in some way incorporating all the others." We in the West have our story of civilization starting in Egypt and Mesopotamia, coming to an early climax in ancient Greece and Rome, continuing through the Middle Ages until the Industrial Revolution. A couple world wars and then America is on top. Destiny Disrupted is about creating a narrative like that but for the 1+ billion Muslims of the world.

Ansary begins by stating that, instead of using the term "Middle East", he's adopted "Middle World". "Middle East" may make sense to Westerners but not to folks living there. He also brings in the Islamic calendar so dates are placed within the familiar Western calendar of Common Era years as well as in years After the Hijra. The Hijra is where the book really begins. We learn of Mohammed's revelations and his accumulation of followers and of the machinations of his enemies in Mecca. In 622C.E. Mohammed and his followers fled to Medina and this is the Hijra. Destiny Disrupted explained a lot about Islam but it shouldn't be viewed as a guide to the religion. It gives you the general currents and the prominent figures of the story but this isn't an exegetical work. Ansary isn't out to throw quotes from the Qur'an at the reader but he does want you to understand that Islam is about more than a supernatural figure called Allah. It is a religion but it is also a prescription for daily life in a way that, I, at least, don't think of Christianity as being.

Without wanting to elaborate too much on 1400 years of history, I will say that it's a fascinating story. Mohammad's life encapsulates one era of Islamic history and the first four khalifates comprise another. Islam expanded its reach both in the hearts of people and in square miles. Then came dynasties such as the Umayyad and Abbasid. Things were looking good. Then the Seljuk Turks started invading Muslim lands in the 10th century (C.E.) and conquered the Islamic world. In the 13th century Chengez Khan and the Mongols gave a brief and exceptionally bloody encore. And let's not forget the Ottomans.

While the Islamic world was never wholly separated from the West, it isn't until (the Crusades aside) what we call The Age of Exploration that events take on a more "modern" patina. Western Europeans come to trade but, over the course of a few centuries, they insert themselves into Muslim societies and essentially colonize them with comparatively little bloodshed thanks to corrupt leaders, lopsided, no-bid contracts, et al. What started before the Industrial Revolution bloomed when oil was discovered and the history begins to sound really familiar. Destiny Disrupted is mostly a political history but Ansary gives the reader generous doses of cultural history as well such as how Western intervention and colonization spawned various reform movements.

Because Ansary is not a historian by trade, he is free to write in a very conversational tone. For instance, when Arab victory over a Sassanid army was assured, a Pheidippides-like messenger rides to Medina to deliver the news. Ansary writes: "Approaching Medina, he passed a geezer by the side of the road..." I think that this kind of approach helps readers who generally find history incredibly boring or who are unfamiliar with the material at hand to ease into the subject matter and hold their attention. On the other hand, his approach can elide nuance and give an incomplete impression. Take what he writes about Saladin, the Muslim leader who basically put the final kibosh on the Crusader Kingdoms and started his own dynasty. Ansary describes him as living an ascetic lifestyle and being a pretty nice guy who "often went out of his way to perform acts of hospitality and grace." "His power," we are told, "ultimately lay in the fact that people simply adored him." This allowed him to let "his reputation unite his people and soften his enemies."

While I'm not out to say that Ansary is wrong, the description of Saladin here omits the fact that Saladin got his ass handed to him by Baldwin IV, King of Jerusalem, at the battle of Montgisard and that Saladin encountered some rough spots in trying to keep his holdings consolidated. You can't deny Saladin's accomplishments or his reputation in the Islamic world, but I think that Ansary makes things out to be a bowl of cherries when things were actually more complicated.

Exactly how many more instances like this there are in the text, I don't know. But I don't feel that this diminishes the larger story being told. Ansary is out to provide a history for the lay reader and he accomplishes that well. He's not trying to place the Islamic world above Christendom, though he does take some well-deserved jabs at Western imperialism and arrogance. The story of the world through Islamic eyes runs parallel to and intersects that of the one seen through Western eyes. Destiny Disrupted doesn't answer the question that was asked so many times in the aftermath of 9/11 – why do they hate us? – with a litany of grievances but rather with the idea that the Islamic world and the West tend to talk past one another. There are some definite incompatibilities between the two cultures but collectively we have no way of beginning to mediate differences. Each views the other as The Other – that depersonalized bogeyman – and it seems that we can only communicated with greenbacks or at the point of a gun.

Lakefront on Brewing TV

2011-12-05T08:58:00.002-06:00

A nice portrait of Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. It was cool to see that they're trying to isolate some Wisconsin yeast so that Local Acre will be made of 100% Wisconsin ingredients. Also neat is the brewery's support of local homebrewers by giving away free wort and allowing their recipes to be used in making homebrew kits. And they do offer a great tour.

Brewing TV - Episode 50: Lakefront Brewery from Brewing TV on Vimeo.

Coming Soon in Horror Theatre: KILL ME

2011-12-02T11:31:00.000-06:00

Playwright Scott Barsotti's KILL ME will be the next production by Chicago's horror theatre troupe, WildClaw Theatre.

Upon awakening from a post-traumatic coma, Cam is convinced that she has lost her ability to die. As her reaction to immortality rapidly shifts from invincible wonder to cosmic terror, her sanity begins to break. Fearing life eternal, Cam attempts suicide…again…and again…causing her sister and lover to grapple with nightmares of their own, born in the dream world, and the real one. Are the demons plaguing these women real or imagined…and is there ultimately a difference? Through relentlessly shifting dimensions, soundscapes, and mental worlds, KILL ME presents a lyrical horror story in which unending life proves worse than death.

WildClaw previous staged Barsotti's The Revenants which was great.

I would definitely go the theatre more often here in Madison if troupes staged some horror like this.

Central Waters + Local Option = A Little Death

2011-12-02T11:23:00.000-06:00

Central Waters has teamed up with the bierwerkers of Chicago's Local Option to create La Petite Mort. (Is "la" a definite or indefinite article?)

La Petite Mort is a Belgian inspired Weissenbock brewed as a one off collaboration between The Local Option and Central Waters Brewery in Amherst, Wisconsin. A bourbon barrel aged version of La Petite Mort will be available in spring 2012.

When Central Waters decided to open its brew house for its first collaboration beer, Chicago’s Local Option was the obvious partner in crime. The resulting brainchild, La Petite Mort – a Belgian inspired Weissenbock – maintains the traditional characteristics of its Bavarian forbearer, with the added complexity of Belgian ale yeast. La Petite Mort is dark amber in color; maintains a rich, full-bodied mouth-feel augmented by caramel; mild and dark fruit. Rounded out by an unostentatious bourbon driven aroma from brief bourbon barrel aging, La Petite Mort is a complex ale, a marriage of distinctive styles, and an orgasmic experience for the taste buds that revel in its glory.

I Am Tried And True - Trust Me

2011-12-02T11:17:00.000-06:00

Yay for prejudice.

(/sarcasm)

A recent study found that atheists were about as trustworthy as rapists. It was one of six studies which examined why believers distrusted non-believers.

"Where there are religious majorities -- that is, in most of the world -- atheists are among the least trusted people," says lead author Will Gervais, a doctoral student in UBC's Dept. of Psychology.

The researchers conducted a series of six studies with 350 American adults and nearly 420 university students in Canada, posing a number of hypothetical questions and scenarios to the groups. In one study, participants found a description of an untrustworthy person to be more representative of atheists than of Christians, Muslims, gay men, feminists or Jewish people. Only rapists were distrusted to a comparable degree.

"Outward displays of belief in God may be viewed as a proxy for trustworthiness, particularly by religious believers who think that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them," says Norenzayan. "While atheists may see their disbelief as a private matter on a metaphysical issue, believers may consider atheists' absence of belief as a public threat to cooperation and honesty."

State "Loans" Spectrum a Few Million

2011-12-01T14:18:00.002-06:00

I read today that there's a report going around saying that the state of Ohio has offered Sears Holdings Corp. $400 million to move its headquarters from suburban Chicago. That's a pretty big chunk of change.

It reminded me that the state of Wisconsin recently extended a bribe of its own to Spectrum Brands:

On Tuesday, the former Rayovac Corp. announced a deal with the state to invest $40 million in its Wisconsin operations, hire 60 new staffers immediately and keep its headquarters in Madison through 2016.

For help, Spectrum Brands is receiving an interest free, $4 million forgivable loan from the Wisconsin Economic Development Commission.

If Spectrum follows through on its plans and maintains at least 470 full-time employees in Madison until Oct. 1, 2016, it doesn't have to pay the money back.

So, is any of this $4 million interest-free, forgivable loan taxpayer money? Or is the private side of WEDC ponying up the bill? I'm thinking the former. Yet, it was not long ago that our illustrious governor said, "The state’s broke. Local governments are broke. They don’t have anything to offer." So we're broke yet we still have $4 million to lend at 0% interest and it may just end up being a gift.

One thing I don't like about Mike Ivey's article is that it doesn't say what happens if Spectrum is unable or unwilling to follow through on its plans. So, if they fall short for whatever reason, what then? Does the state simply get its money back? Money that could have been put to another use to grow the economy. I sure hope that, if Spectrum can't uphold their part of the bargain, that the state at least gets our money back with a little interest.

Another aspect of the article that bugs me is its lack of context. Did Spectrum ask for a loan? Did the company threaten to leave the state if no financial incentives were put on the table? Ivey notes that the company is on the "rebound from a 2009 Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization." It laid off 29 people this past June and posted a fiscal fourth quarter loss. But look on the bright side. It's full year loss was only $75.2 million.

Not having been a business or economics major in college, it is possible that I am missing something here. Perhaps Spectrum is just having some post-bankruptcy teething pains and is really on track to a healthy future. But considering that the company currently has 420 employees here in Madison and is being given $4 million to keep 470 jobs here for a few more years, I see the state basically subsidizing 50 of those jobs to the tune of $80,000 apiece. Can that $4 million be spent in a way that would enhance Wisconsin's economic future beyond 2016?

What Is Your MP3 Player Saying?

2011-12-01T12:56:00.000-06:00

Last weekend at Chicago TARDIS I attended a couple panels with freelance writer and DW geek Graeme Burk. Never having heard of him before, I looked up his website. I found a blog post there called "Ten Songs Shuffled On An iPod" and it begins:

I don’t think there is a better indication for how eclectic, how varied, how diverse a human being can be than to trawl through an individual’s MP3 player.

At first I was given to agreeing with him when I remembered that I don't have any music on my MP3 player and haven't for many months. Perhaps more than a year. Instead my Sansa Clip has several lectures on medieval history stored on it. Currently I am listening to Era of the Crusades by Kenneth Harl with aural goodness about the Vikings and Byzantium on deck.

I prefer to think of this not so much as a reflection of a lack of diversity or eclecticism on my part but rather that I have superseded Mr. Burk in geekery. Furthermore, I feel that not owning an Apple product as he does also counts in my favor.

Movies to Return to Orpheum?

2011-12-01T12:28:00.000-06:00

It's been months since the Orpheum Theatre here in Madison was regularly screening films but now I have a glimmer of hope that the projector will be fired up again.

In the new Isthmus Linda Falkenstein writes that the Orpheum Lobby Restaurant has closed until the spring for remodeling. But the interesting part is a quote from the theatre's event co-ordinator Jeff Ketterhagen.

Ketterhagen says the vision is for more of a cine-dine-style experience. That is, "people come in, have dinner, and then see a movie, whether it be old or new," something the Orpheum has done from time to time in the past, Ketterhagen notes.

Does this mean that cinema is returning to the Orpheum or does eating there and then walking to campus or driving to another theatre for a flick count as "more of a cine-dine-style experience"?

So Long Leine's Fireside Nut Brown

2011-11-30T16:41:00.000-06:00

Word is that Leinenkugel is dropping their winter seasonal, Fireside Nut Brown, after this year's batch. It's apparently going away to make room for another beer as yet to be determined.

While Fireside was never a regular purchase for me, I have had it and it's not bad. Like most of their brews, the stuff is kind of watery - lacking a real malt backbone. And it's not that potent so I have to wonder why it is their winter seasonal. Hopefully the Big Eddy series will get some more exposure by being introduced full-time.

Wisconsin Senators Vote For Indefinitely Detaining U.S. Citizens

2011-11-30T16:21:00.000-06:00

Matt Rothschild has a disturbing article about the National Defense Authorization Act, S. 1867 which, if passed, would give the government the power to throw U.S. citizens into Gitmo.

Section 1031 of the bill gives the President and the Armed Forces enormous power to detain people they believe were involved in the attacks of Sept. 11 or supported Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.”

That section empowers the President to detain such persons indefinitely without trial or to try them before a military court or to transfer them “to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.”

Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado introduced an amendment would, according to Human Rights First:

...would have removed three troubling sections of the defense authorization bill, proposals that the Obama Administration has warned could result in a Presidential veto. One section authorizes the military to indefinitely detain without charge individuals – including American citizens apprehended on U.S. soil – who are suspected of involvement with terrorism. A second section forces law enforcement officials to transfer a large category of terrorism suspects into military custody, against the advice of counterterrorism professionals. A third section will further institute restrictions on the transfer of cleared Guantanamo detainees.

Much to my chagrin, both Wisconsin senators voted against the amendment. I expect a jagoff like Ron Johnson to be all gung-ho and vote against it but so did Herb Kohl.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Mr. Kohl.

So Ole Says to Lena by James Leary

2011-11-28T16:37:00.000-06:00

Prof. James Leary is, to my mind, one of a triumvirate of big names that really put the history of Wisconsin into the popular realm. John Gourda chronicles Milwaukee's past, Jerry Apps works to keep the state's rural past alive, and Leary is a folky anthropologist who eschews the well-worn symbols such as beer, cheese, and barns for equally pervasive but often ignored cultural markers such as Wisconsin folk music and jokes. Gourda covers Wisconsin's largest city, Apps works in a general rural/small town frameworks, but, as near as I can tell, it is Leary who looks at Wisconsin in the context of Upper Midwest region. Such is the case here with his So Ole Says to Lena: Folk Humor of the Upper Midwest.

Having grown up in Chicago, I was familiar with Polock jokes. (E.g. – "How did the Germans invade Poland? They walked in backwards and said they were leaving.") But, after moving to west central Wisconsin where there were mostly Olsons, Nelsons, Johnsons, Skogstads, etc., I soon encountered Old and Lena jokes such as this one in Leary's book.

What was that one about Ole and Lena? Oh, they were going to get married.
And they asked Ole, they says, "Are you a...what nationality are you?"
He says, "I'm a Swede."
He asked Lena, "What are you?"
Says, "I'm Norwegian, but I have a little Swede in me, too. Ole couldn't wait."

While there are plenty of Ole and Lena jokes in this book, Leary provides a comprehensive survey of jokes of various stripes here. Let me backtrack for a second and note that the book's introduction is by W.K. McNeil of The Ozark Folk Center. It's less than 20 pages long yet has 42 footnotes. He describes jokes as "complex, many-sided folk narratives" and provides a short history of academic joke collecting. Generally speaking, humor has been ignored until recently by scholars and some of the work that has been done in pretty shoddy. Furthermore, it would seem that Leary is breaking some new ground here as Upper Midwestern humor looks to have been given short shrift but Leary provides the remedy to this problem.

The jokes here were recorded by the author himself over the course of many years in the 1970s and 80s and are presented in chronological order of nationality as they appeared in Wisconsin. That is, American Indian tales come first followed by French, Cornish, and so on. Once ethnic jokes are dispatched with, we move on to those relating to vocation such as logging and farming. Humor directed at townsfolk and hunters & fishers round things out.

Leary annotates the jokes as necessary, explaining homophones, place names, and pointing out recurring motifs such as "Drunk as usual". Leary explains how jokes can deal with many topics. One common one is how they are windows into times when traditional culture meets change. I personally like the Ojibwa joke about Wenabozho, a mythical being, going to see a psychiatrist. Lots of humor is directed by one ethnic group at another so you get examples such as Norwegians telling "dumb Swede jokes".

On a more personal note, I have to admit that my own experience with Wisconsin humor is consonant with the picture that Leary paints here. When I first moved to Wisconsin, Norwegians were usually the butt of ethnic jokes. It's like you could just swap the word "Polack" for "Norwegian" or "Stash" for "Ole". About a year after I moved to Madison I met a Finnish-American who was a co-worker. He worked hard and drank a lot – a trait you find in Finnish jokes. (He took to the description "blue-faced drunken Finn" from John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy.) And he liked saunas so I was very amused by the Finnish joke in the book called "The Cannibals' Sauna". During one conversation in which Stoughton came up, this Finn told me something along the lines of "There's just a bunch of Norwegians on acid down there." Lo and behold Leary includes the following:

What do you get when you cross lutefish with a hit of LSD?

A trip to Stoughton.

The book also includes a variation of a tall tale I heard more than once living up nort – that of the hunter whose gun wasn't working so he had to jump from a tree onto a buck and kill it with his bare hands. Lastly, I'll note that it was interesting to see how jokes that rural folk made about town folk morphed into jokes that Cheeseheads make about FIBs.

Leary excludes the humor of African-, Asian-, and Hispanic-Americans as these groups haven't been in Wisconsin long enough or in large enough numbers. But there will no doubt be a companion volume at some point in the future when the jokes of these cultures lose their "Old World skin". I can only recall one Hmong joke that I heard when living up by Eau Claire. I think it was one of the city's high schools that had a bulldog mascot and the joke was "Why did the school take down the bulldog statue? Because too many Hmong pulled up thinking the school was a restaurant." Ba-dum bum. Surely there are jokes out there that aren't nasty like this one.

So Ole Says to Lena was not only funny, but I also appreciated that it filled in the picture of how Europeans settled the Upper Midwest generally and Wisconsin specifically. We tend to think of the story as simply that a bunch of Germans and Scandinavians came over and farmed but there were rivalries brought over from the Old World that persisted and you can get a glimpse of them in folk humor. The same can be said of how American Indians adapted to their fate when the territory was overrun with pale faces and how their traditions ran headlong into the dominant culture. So Ole Says to Lena is not overly academic, the introduction aside, and is some fine reading for denizens of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan's UP. (Along with some folks from Illinois, Iowa, Lower Michigan, the Dakotas.)

Samsung Pwns Apple Drones

2011-11-23T11:49:00.000-06:00

La Rocca's Moving to Oregon

2011-11-16T16:15:00.000-06:00

It was a bummer to read the news that La Rocca's is closing shop here in Madison and moving south to Oregon. (The town not the state.)

This is too bad as I liked their food. Best of luck to the La Rocca family. Hopefully this family restaurant won't suffer the same fate as Bev's - leave Madison for a small town and then go out of business shortly thereafter.

I also hope that some place interesting moves in. The neighborhood could use a good ethic eatery. I know Linda Falkenstein is pulling for Bolivian food but I'm hoping for a Polish restaurant. It'll probably be a cafe.

Lukas Diaz is Wrong About the Economy

2011-11-16T12:48:00.002-06:00

Lukas Diaz tees off on Dave Cieslewicz in a post called "Citizen Dave is Wrong About the Economy". Cieslewicz was critical of the economic development group Thrive in one of his recent blog posts.

Diaz begins by attempting to discredit Madison's former mayor by citing some development failures of his administration and noting that Epic's move to Verona was squarely at odds with Cieslewicz's Richard Florida-inspired views. The crux here is Cieslewicz's disagreement with the idea that Madison and Janesville are optimal Thrive partners for economic development:

So why are Madison and Janesville both part of the same “region” as defined by the private-public economic development entity called Thrive? There is simply no good reason for it, and the wrong definition of the region is hurting Madison and Dane County, while it isn’t doing much for the other seven included counties either. Thrive is a fine idea, and a good organization led and staffed by bright people, but it’s fatally flawed by its size.

After attempting to argue that Cieslewicz is not the most knowledgeable person to be commenting on the issue, Diaz says:

The difference between Madison and Janesville are much smaller than the difference between Madison and the whole world. We are in a global economy, regional cooperation is a good thing. So Thrive, keep doing what you’re doing.

The first sentence hangs on how you define "difference". Sure, Madison and Janesville are geographically close to one another, are bound by a common language, et al, but these are not the things Cieslewicz was talking about because they aren't that important when it comes to Madison deciding where to pin its economic future. Yes, Madison has fewer "differences" when compared to Janesville than Shanghai, but so what?

Take a look at the second sentence. What can Janesville contribute to a partnership with Madison that will give everyone a leg up in competing in a global economy? Parker Pen and GM are gone and I'd bet that most of the suppliers to these industries are also gone. I don't have statistics other than an unemployment rate of around 9% to determine what Janesville would bring to a marriage; instead all I have are anecdotes. My mother goes to visit family there and has concluded that it's a city on life support. A friend has a sibling who works at a Rock County job center and this person has nothing but horror stories. So, while the plural of anecdote is not data, I am sticking with my story until someone comes up with some data that show how Janesville would be a good partner for Madison in a global economy.

If Janesville has something to add to our economic future, great. We here in Madison should be ready to partner with anyone. But in terms of focusing efforts, Madison needs more of this, an energy research consortium linking facilities and researchers in Milwaukee and Madison together. The southeast corner of Wisconsin accounts for about a third of the state's economic output with Milwaukee being the northern frontier of an economic mega-region with Chicago, a global city, at its center. That's where Madison should be seeking partnerships.

Vladimir Putin Named Peacemaker of the Year

2011-11-15T15:30:00.002-06:00

This is just rich. Vladimir Putin has won an award for promoting peace. It's almost as big a joke as Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

After two wars in Chechnya, one conflict in South Ossetia and two of the deadliest hostage relief operations in modern history, the former KGB officer was named on Monday as the winner of the second Confucian peace prize.

It is unclear if Putin is even aware of the award which was chosen by an obscure cultural organisation, the China International Peace Research Centre, from a field of nominees including Bill Gates, Angela Merkel, Kofi Annan, Jacob Zuma and a Tibetan Panchen Lama imposed by Beijing.

The 16-judge panel said that Putin deserved the award because his criticism of Nato's military engagement in Libya was "outstanding in keeping world peace", regardless of the fact that it had no bearing on the outcome of the north African conflict.

Madison's Polish Film Festival is On!

2011-11-15T14:22:00.001-06:00

The 21st Annual Polish Film Festival takes place here in Madison beginning this weekend. It's going to come in two phases this year with the second coming next month.

Admission is free.

Here's the schedule:

Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave.
Saturday, November L9
1:00 PM Joanna with director Feliks Falk

3:30 PM Black Thursday (Czarny Czwartek)

Great Theatre, Memorial Union; 800 Langdon St.
Sunday, November 20
2:00 PM The Officer's Wife

Eastgate Cinema, 5202 High Crossing Blvd.
Thursday, December 8
7:00 PM 1920 The World's Most Important Battle (192O Bitwa Warszawska)
Poland's premier 3D film...3D glasses will be provided

Marquee Theatre, Union South, 1308 W Dayton St.
Saturday, December 10
3:00 PM Wonderful Summer (Cudowne Lato)

Sunday, December 11
7:00 PM "Winner" (Wygrany)

Batch 19 Hits Madison & Other Brews News

2011-11-11T10:54:00.001-06:00

Yesterday the Wisconsin State Journal reported that MillerCoors has added Madison as a test market for Batch 19, "pre-Prohibition style lager". It's on tap around town at the following locations:

Bonfyre American Grille, 2601 W. Beltline

• The Cannery Grill, 315 E. Linnerud Drive, Sun Prairie

• Whiskey Jacks, 552 State St.

• Lazy Oaf Lounge, 1617 N. Stoughton Road

• Club Tavern, 1915 Branch St., Middleton

• Lucky's Bar and Grille, 1421 Regent St.

• Chasers, 319 W. Gorham St.

• Namio's Sports Pub, 5956 Executive Drive, Fitchburg

• The Draft House, 1010 Enterprise Drive, Verona

• Nitty Gritty, 223 N. Frances St.

And earlier this week I found some new labels from Milwaukee Brewing Company.

Hop Happy looks to be an IPA while Polish Moon is apparently a milk stout. No idea about Booyah. Anyone know if these are on tap at the brewery or at the Milwaukee Ale House?

A couple other miscellaneous things.

Firstly, a friend of mine who loves Ale Aslyum's Mercy Grand Cru told me that he thinks this year's batch is great and much better than last year's. I'll give the credit to Joe Walts because, if I don't, he'll never let me drink his homebrew again.

Lastly, I was in Palmyra earlier this week. I stopped in at the BP there for gas and found that there was a display in the aisle near the coolers for Potosi beer. Just a stack of 6-packs out to meet the customer. Despite how boring Jeff Glazer thinks Wisconsin breweries have been lately, I think it's great that one can get craft beer at gas stations in just about every podunk town in this state.

Welcoming a Boy Into Manhood

2011-11-09T16:38:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I found out that my 12 year-old stepson has started listening to Disturbed. All I know about them is that they're a metal band from Chicago and that they did a cover of Genesis' "Land of Confusion". Prior to this revelation, he only listened to early Beatles ("Love Me Do", "Eight Days a Week", &c.) as far as I knew. I guess the testosterone is flowing.

With puberty immanent, I've been thinking about how to celebrate his first step into manhood. American WASPy culture doesn't have much in the way of rituals to celebrate entrance into puberty. A talk about birds and bees or a trip to the store for tampons is about all this culture can offer. There's no equivalent of Bar/Bat Mitzvahs for us gentiles. I had a friend who's Catholic family had him confirmed when he was around 12 but I'm not sure confirmation really counts. And we're not Catholic.

Looking around the Net, I see that some cultures initiate boys into manhood with a beating or a tattoo. While I think a beating would do the kid good, that won't fly. And neither will taking him to a brothel. I've gotta find something good and manly. I don't hunt so I can't take him deer hunting. I'd take him camping and let him do some fishing and maybe shoot a real gun for the first time but it's too late in the season.

I never had a Welcome to Manhood rite so I've no personal experience to draw upon. Maybe I could take him to a bar like Wiggies, buy him a root beer, and then take him to an R-rated movie.

Somebody help me out here with suggestions.

New Liquor Store Coming to Madison?

2011-11-09T12:09:00.000-06:00

Binny's Beverage Depot, a Chicago-area chain of liquor stores, is looking to into Wisconsin.

Binny’s CEO Michael Binstein says he’s seeking sites in other downstate Illinois markets and is preparing a push into neighboring Wisconsin. “We’re looking at moving into both Madison and Milwaukee,” Binstein told Shanken News Daily. “There are some exceptional opportunities in Wisconsin.” Binstein also disclosed clear ambitions to expand regionally and then nationally. “Once we set up the internal infrastructure to expand to Wisconsin, we can use that as a springboard to go national,” he said.

I've been to Binny's in suburban Chicago and they are quite the stores. A great selection of beer. While it all depends on the store and on distributors, I am hopeful that a Binny's here in Madison would have a decent German bier section, unlike basically every retailer in the city.

Spring Cinematheque Schedule Taking Shape and Other Cinematic Ramblings

2011-11-09T10:02:00.000-06:00

I noticed recently that The Innkeepers will be playing at the UW Cinematheque next semester on 17 February. Looks like we have some good scares to look forward to.

The following month on the 31st Cinematheque will screen François Truffaut's The Soft Skin.

And then on 28 April the Cinematheque will usher in spring with The Makioka Sisters by Ken Ichikawa.

Hopefully Beyond the Black Rainbow will make its way here next year as well. It sounds like a real mindfuck kind of flick – check out the synopsis from the Tribeca guide:

Panos Cosmatos brings a bold, Kubrickian vision to the screen in stunning detail in this sci-fi fable of a young woman imprisoned in an experimental laboratory and the enigmatic scientist who is her captor. Set in a futuristic 1983, Elena finds herself held against her will in a mysterious facility under the watchful eye of the sinister Dr. Barry Nyle. Pushed to her limits, Elena is left with no choice but to navigate an escape from her labyrinthine prison, in the process revealing its hidden secrets.

Notice the shot here in the trailer of the tunnel. Makes me think Cosmatos is a Tarkovsky fan as well.

A couple film festivals start soon at the UW. First comes the 1st Annual Reel Love LGBT Film Festival. It begins tomorrow night and here's the full schedule:

Thursday, November 10
7:00 pm: We Were Here (USA, 2011, 90 min., digital, dir. David Weissman)

Friday, November 11
4:30 pm: Paris is Burning (USA, 1990, 78 min., digital, dir. Jennie Livingston)
7:00 pm: Tomboy (France, 2011, 84 min., digital, dir. Céline Sciamma)
9:30pm: The Birdcage (USA, 1996, 118 min., digital, dir. Mike Nichols)
11:59 pm: Pink Flamingos (USA, 1972, 92 min., digital, dir. John Waters)
Midnight: Dance at DMF. Plan B’s Video DJ Amos Smith performs for free at the Sett in Union South

Saturday, November 12
4:30 pm: For the Bible Tells Me So (USA, 2007, 100 min., 35mm, dir. Dan Karslake)
7:00 pm: Bloomington (USA, 2010, 83 min., digital, dir. Fernanda Cardoso)
9:30pm: 3 (Drei) (Germany, 2010, 120 min., digital, dir. Tom Tykwer)
11:59 pm: Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (USA, 2011, 75 min., digital, dir. Madeleine Olnek)

Sunday, November 13
4:30 pm: Were the World Mine (USA, 2008, 95 min., digital, dir. Tom Gustafson)
7:00 pm: Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride (Canada, 2009, 85 min., digital, dir. Bob Christie)

Good to see that Tom Tykwer's Drei will be screened. I like Tykwer but it's pretty far removed from the stuff that earned him his reputation.

And then on the 19th is the Celtic Film Festival.

Saturday, November 19
1:00 pm Cornish shorts (52 minutes)
Y Fargen (10 minutes)
3:00 pm The Runway (95 minutes)
5:00 pm Parked (94 minutes)
7:00 pm Blazing the Trail (86 minutes)
Followed by Q & A
9:30 pm NEDS (124 minutes)

Sunday, November 20
1:00 pm Irish shorts (81 minutes)
3:00 pm Jig (99 minutes)
5:00 pm Kings (88 minutes)
7:00 pm Patagonia (118 minutes)

Sundance has updated their calendar.

Take Shelter opens this Friday.

The Skin I Live In will arrive on the 18th.

Lastly, Werner Herzog's Into the Abyss hits Madison 2 December.

Triumph Visits Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-07T10:00:00.000-06:00

US Bank President to the Little People: "Get over it."

2011-11-04T08:54:00.001-05:00

U.S. Bank President Richard Davis was in the Twin Cities a couple days ago and spoke at a Minnesota Chamber of Commerce event. There were protestors outside but he mainly ignored them as everyone enjoyed their hot dish. However, his one comment about them was enlightening:

"'Everybody's breaking the rules, blah blah blah,'" Davis said at one point, admonishing the assembled business leaders to "get over it."

Who are these people wondering what the OWS movement's demands are? Let's start with prosecuting assholes like Richard Davis for what Yves Smith calls "bank looting".

1. Violation of REMIC (real estate mortgage conduit) rules, which are IRS provisions which allow mortgage backed securities to be treated as pass-through entities...Moreover, when the senior enforcement officer in the IRS was alerted last year, she was keenly interested. But the word that came back was the the question had gone to the White House, and the answer was to nix going after these violations...this is prima facie evidence of an Administration policy of protecting the banks.

2. Consumer fraud under HAMP. Catherine Masto of Nevada has already delineated this case in her second amended complaint against numerous Bank of America entities (in fact, the evidently clueless President could find a raft of other litigation ideas in her filing). All the servicers engaged in similar egregious conduct.

3. Securities fraud by mortgage trustees and serivcers. While the statute of limitations for securities fraud for the sale of toxic mortgage securities in the runup to the crisis has now passed, securitization trustees and servicers are making false certifications in periodic SEC filings. In layperson terms, the trustee certifies that everything is kosher with the trust assets. As readers well know, in many cases the custodians do not have the notes or they were not conveyed to the trust as stipulated in the pooling and servicing agreement (as in they were not properly endorsed through the chain of title).

4. Widespread risk management failures as Sarbanes-Oxley violations. As we’ve discussed, Sarbox provides a fairly low risk path to criminal prosecutions. And we believe the SEC has been incorrectly deterred by an adverse ruling in the early stages of its case against Angelo Mozilo.

"A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion" (Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations)

While I don't mean to simply appeal to authority here, I thought it was a nice quote considering reports I've read today which detail just how little income tax many corporations pay. Andrew Leonard up at Salon looked at a new report from the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

37 of the United States’ biggest corporations paid zero taxes in 2010...The list of companies that paid zero taxes is only the beginning of the travesties documented by the report. The authors looked at the tax filings from 2008-2010 of 280 of the nation’s biggest, most successful corporations. These companies reported $1.4 trillion worth of profit during a period when most Americans were struggling to stay afloat. The authors discovered that the average effective tax rate — what the companies really paid after government subsidies, tax breaks and various tax dodges were taken into account — was only 18.5 percent, less than half the statutory rate. Fully a quarter of the 280 companies paid under 10 percent.

But this isn't just the case with IBM and Verizon; it's nearly the same here in Wisconsin as Mike Ivey noted:

Now, the IWF is out with a report showing four nameplate corporations in Wisconsin are avoiding state taxes at the same time they are booking huge profits, cutting local workforces and handing out fat paychecks to top executives.

The four firms also booked a combined $29 billion in profits and paid $0 in state corporate income taxes -- save for Kimberly-Clark, which did pay in three of those 10 years, according to the IWF report.

Isn't that just tits.

Matt Taibbi has another reason to hate Wall Street - those people cheat:

FREE MONEY. Ordinary people have to borrow their money at market rates. Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon get billions of dollars for free, from the Federal Reserve. They borrow at zero and lend the same money back to the government at two or three percent...

CREDIT AMNESTY. If you or I miss a $7 payment on a Gap card or, heaven forbid, a mortgage payment, you can forget about the great computer in the sky ever overlooking your mistake. But serial financial fuckups like Citigroup and Bank of America overextended themselves by the hundreds of billions and pumped trillions of dollars of deadly leverage into the system -- and got rewarded with things like the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, an FDIC plan that allowed irresponsible banks to borrow against the government's credit rating.

STUPIDITY INSURANCE. Time after time, when big banks screw up and make irresponsible bets that blow up in their faces, they've scored bailouts. It doesn't matter whether it was the Mexican currency bailout of 1994 (when the state bailed out speculators who gambled on the peso) or the IMF/World Bank bailout of Russia in 1998 (a bailout of speculators in the "emerging markets") or the Long-Term Capital Management Bailout of the same year (in which the rescue of investors in a harebrained hedge-fund trading scheme was deemed a matter of international urgency by the Federal Reserve), Wall Street has long grown accustomed to getting bailed out for its mistakes.

UNGRADUATED TAXES. I've already gone off on this more than once, but it bears repeating. Bankers on Wall Street pay lower tax rates than most car mechanics.

GET OUT OF JAIL FREE. But we do still have about 2.3 million people in jail in America.

Virtually all 2.3 million of those prisoners come from "the 99%." Here is the number of bankers who have gone to jail for crimes related to the financial crisis: 0.

Getting back to Mr. Davis, it seems he and his institution have no problem kicking people when they're down as this article at Huffington Post shows. U.S. Bank imposes some pretty hefty fees on the debit cards used by some states as a method for paying unemployment insurance.

Out of work and living on a $189-a-week unemployment check, Rob Linville needs to watch every penny.

The state of Oregon, where Linville lives, deposits his weekly benefits on a U.S. Bank prepaid debit card. The bank allows him to make four withdrawals per month free of charge. After that, he must pay $1.50 for each visit to the ATM and $3 to see a teller. Managing his basic expenses, including rent, bus fare and groceries, typically requires more than four withdrawals, he says. Unexpected needs -- Linville recently bought a sport coat for $20 to prepare for a job interview -- entail more. He's afraid to withdraw his full benefits in one shot, knowing that the bank could sock him with a $17.50 overdraft fee if he exceeds his balance. So he pulls out small amounts of cash as he needs it, incurring about $15 in fees in the last two months he says.

Crucifixion is too good for Richard Davis.

Rumors Abound Regarding DWD Departures

2011-10-31T17:55:00.000-05:00

The rumor mill continues to grind out the bread and life of destiny.

It was not even a week ago when I received news that WI Department of Workforce Development Secretary Scott Baumbach resigned after a paltry four months on the job. Today I heard a rumor that he took one for the team and resigned because he is being investigated for tax fraud.

Just last Friday it was reported that Allison Rozek, the administrator of the Administrative Services Division, departed. The rumor says she was escorted out of her office in handcuffs.

The first rumor is at least plausible but I haven't been able to find a news article indicating that Rozek had manacles slapped on her. You'd think that this would be newsworthy and that some reporter somewhere would have stumbled upon this if it had happened.

No word on whether these two events are related, however.

A-Crusading We Will Go

2011-10-31T15:26:00.000-05:00

Historian Peter Frankopan has a book due soon called The First Crusade: the Call from the East. It's being promoted as a revolutionary book as you can read at this article at The Australian. The publisher, Harvard University Press, contends that Frankopan is "countering nearly a millennium of scholarship" with his new book.

The old story supposedly goes like this: Pope Urban II decided it was high time to free Jerusalem from those dastardly Muslims 450+ years after they took it. And so in 1095 he put on his rhetorical hat and gave a speech at the Council of Clermont which urged his most beloved brethren of Western Christendom to venture east and take up his cause.

Frankopan's supposed revelation is that the First Crusade was actually more about helping out the Byzantine Alexios Komnenos who was having a hard time of things.

For Dr Frankopan, the First Crusade was therefore not a religious war, but instead a "very specific, targeted military expedition against the cities of Nicaea and Antioch", two former Byzantine possessions that the crusader army swore an oath to hand over to Alexios. Jerusalem was just a carrot.

While I'm not scholar, I am confused as to what is actually new about this idea. I've been listening to a wonderful lecture called "Era of the Crusades" by Professor Kenneth W. Harl and I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that this notion of the First Crusade being rooted in the realpolitik of the time instead of solely being a religious endeavor wouldn't be new to him. In short, Harl says that Emperor Basil II's heirs were a bunch of fuck-ups, including Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes who got his ass stomped at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 by the Seljuk Turks. Not only that, they took him prisoner. After this, the Turks took Anatolia and Byzantium was in a bit of a pickle.

Alexios I Komnenos became emperor in 1081 and started to get the empire's shit together. However, he couldn't do everything. Ergo he appealed to Urban II for help. As Prof. Harl said, "He asked for mercenaries and he got a crusade."

And so I am not sure exactly what is new and novel about Frankopan's thesis.

We Never Learned These Stories in History Class

2011-10-31T13:05:00.000-05:00

Ghost stories go way back as evidenced by Debbie Felton's Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity.

“I think these Roman stories are great, and most people don’t realize that ghost and werewolf stories like these were being told 2,000 years ago,” says Felton. “There are many reasons why people enjoy them and enjoy being scared by them. There’s certainly a cathartic effect to hearing a ghost story and being scared out of your wits without ever being in any real danger. But, more essentially, ghost stories ultimately reflect religious beliefs concerning the importance of a proper burial and the survival of the spirit after death. The dead have a need to rest in peace, while the living have a need to believe in an afterlife; who really wants to think about eternal non-existence? And the humor in a lot of ghost stories is a good way to deal with the disturbing reality of death.

“For example, the Roman author Pliny the Younger tells a wonderful little ghost story about a haunted house in Athens,” she says. “It’s a prototypical haunted house story: the horrific ghost of an old man scares everyone away, the house is deserted and falling into disrepair. Finally a brave man comes along who dares to spend the night in the house. He is not afraid of the ghost, and instead realizes the phantom wants to communicate. He follows the ghost to a spot where it disappears; he digs up the spot, finds bones, buries them with the proper rituals, and the ghost never appears again.”

Aural Terror

2011-10-31T12:47:00.000-05:00

Slate has an article today about horror radio drama, specifically Tales From Beyond the Pale.

Just released as a five-CD set containing all 10 episodes, Tales from Beyond the Pale looks backward into nostalgia while offering glimpses of futuristic ambition. Some of the episodes are content to ape old-fashioned radio dramas, only with better production values and more cussing, offering fun twists and turns on a narrative level, but staying literal-minded in terms of sound design: Doors open and close, footsteps are created by a recording engineer with a shoe on each hand, and actors describe sea monsters that viewers can’t see for themselves. They’re a lot of fun and offer a kick of straight nostalgia, especially in the case of “This Oracle Moon” by Jeff Buhler (writer of The Midnight Meat Train) and featuring Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and Doug Jones (the faun from Pan’s Labyrinth). Its cannibal cavemen on the moon, insane androids, and grizzled spaceship captains are ripped right out of an old-school EC Comic.

Going retro has its charms, but a handful of these episodes push the state of the art to the next level. In Sarah Langan’s “Is This Seat Taken?” the old-fashioned declamatory style of line-readings is abandoned for a creepily intimate dialogue between two repressed psychopaths who meet cute on the Long Island Railroad. Him: “My parents thought I was too shy for college and that made it hard so I dropped out and the only job I could get was stringing telephone lines? Along the West Side Highway? I rode the train, like, ten times a week dressed as a construction worker, smelling terrible. It’s like something snapped and I started writing about shooting up all these people. You know, like the fancy people, with lucky lives? And friends? And inch-deep souls? I picked the 5:38 to Mineola and I even got the gun and bullets. And the morning I planned to do it I showered, shaved, brushed my hair and I slit my wrists. My parents found me.” The actors wisely underplay their lines and it sounds so natural that the unfolding drama sucks you in the way eavesdropping on the subway does.

I've never heard of this outfit but it sounds like good stuff. The author, Grady Hendrix, makes a good point.

But with podcasts and audiobooks surging in popularity as more people don earbuds and spend more time in their cars, the radio drama should be primed for a comeback. Except it’s not happening. The image of the traditional radio drama is one held over from the ’30s: attenuated organ music, tinny sound effects, and actors speaking in a kind of non-naturalistic sportscaster’s voice (“It’s a bear! Look out! He’s coming right at you and—what’s that?—he has a gun!”). They’re as comfortably old-fashioned as your grandfather’s cardigans, but they shouldn’t be.

Radio drama does have a reputation as being something purely retro – I've noted this here in Madisonpreviously. A lot of the time the idea is to reproduce an experience from the 1940s by dressing in period clothes or replicating Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast. All is not lost, though. This article on radio drama in Madison shows some signs of artists looking to move beyond pure nostalgia. Still, it's time to move beyond the notions of what radio drama was like 70+ years ago. Even the Friends of Old-Time Radio Convention had its last go-round.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite horror audio dramas. All of these scared the bejeezus out of me.

One of the first audio dramas I ever heard was The Mummy by Monterrey Soundworks. It's an adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars. "All at once the gates of Sleep were thrown wide open…" I love the Victorian English ("gums, spices, and bitumen"!) and how the story starts in media res with Abel Trelawney unconscious, his body being attacked in the middle of the night with someone or something trying to get that bangle off of his wrist. The voice acting is great. I can just picture Sergeant Daw's sideburns when he speaks.

For more chills and spills in a Victorian/Edwardian way, check out Atlanta Radio Theatre Company's The Shadow Over Innsmouth or any of their H.P. Lovecraft adaptations. Everything has a pall over it. People losing their sanity, cultists running amok, and words like "hideous" and "eldritch" get used a lot.

Set in Antarctica in the near future, Simon Bovey's Cold Blood will make you freeze your ears off in the middle of summer. It's not horror per se but you will feel cold listening to it and there are some good scares such as when a couple characters are chasing the villain through a deserted research base and when someone gets stuck out in a blizzard and nearly freezes to death.

There are a few incredibly spooky Doctor Who audio dramas from Big Finish. For example, Chimes of Midnight is chilling in a very Sapphire and Steel kind of way while Night Terrors' name tells you all. I recommend all the Big Finish adventures but I'm going with Embrace the Darkness today. You've The Doctor and Charley wandering the corridors of an isolated scientific base in total darkness with creepy noises off in the distance, creatures that have lost their eyes, and an approaching ship that will spell doom. A classic.

Hey Madison Public Schools, Teach Our Kids

2011-10-31T11:41:00.000-05:00

My stepson has popped me up in chat twice today. At first I thought he was at home but, no, he was at school. He was in homeroom where he has access to a computer. The second time he even invited me to a chat room.

So, kids get out early every Monday, excepting weeks that otherwise have days where there is no school, he had two days off last week because teachers were supposed to be at a convention that was cancelled, and now he and his friends have time to sit around in chat rooms during school hours. If it were lunch time or recess, that's one thing. But if a kid's ass is in a seat in a classroom, he shouldn't be in a chat room.

MPS IT can start rectifying this situation by blocking ports 5222 and 443.

The Morality of Double Dipping

2011-10-28T14:34:00.000-05:00

Shawn Rajanayagam of The Badger Herald has me confused. Earlier this week he penned an editorial in support of a bill which would "ban the practice of double-dipping, whereby state employees can retire and later return to their jobs".

First he says:

While double dipping may not be as financially burdensome as it appears on the surface, to claim that it isn’t unethical is patently ridiculous. Workers should not be able to “retire” for just one month and then regain their employment with the added perks of retirement benefits. Professor Burden’s suggestion that it’s not all that bad is morally abhorrent.

So to say that the practice is ethically sound is "patently ridiculous" and to say it's "not all that bad" is "morally abhorrent". Then later on he opines:

Technically, what these employees have done is legal, but it is certainly not ethical, and they should not be prosecuted. After all, they were only doing what the budget cuts had, to some degree, forced them into — but it is still a morally ambiguous practice, to say the least.

The notion that double dipping isn't all that bad is morally abhorrent yet the practice itself goes from being "not ethical" to being "morally ambiguous, to say the least". Let's go over that again. Defending the practice is abhorrent yet the practice itself is merely morally ambiguous. How odd. To say the least.

So what exactly is the ethical problem with state employees retiring and then returning as LTEs?

This is an important fact to note; the fiscal argument against double dipping is based on the fact that these people are embezzling taxpayer dollars for their own benefit.

Here's an important fact to note, Shawn: what "embezzle" means.

Here's how Miriam-Webster defines embezzle: "to appropriate (as property entrusted to one's care) fraudulently to one's own use".

Dictionary.com: "to appropriate fraudulently to one's own use, as money or property entrusted to one's care."

Oxford dictionary: "steal or misappropriate (money placed in one’s trust or belonging to the organization for which one works)"

Do you see a pattern here, Mr. Rajanayagam? Embezzlement involves fraud and theft whereas retiring and returning to state service as an LTE with no benefits involves two parties in which one exchanges his/her labor for pay. Where is the fraud here?

I know a gentleman who recently retired from state service and returned as a part-time LTE. He gets a pension because he and the state entered into a contract decades ago which said, in part, if he worked for a certain amount of time, he'd get a pension. This guy put in 30+ years and he is reaping the reward of that service. When he retired, that first contract ended. Bang! Zoom! Gone. Now that he has returned, he is working under a new contract which says the state will pay him X dollars an hour to work, no benefits. He is not getting an "added perk" of a pension; he earned that pension by working at the state longer than you've been alive. Where is the fraud here?

So when you write "these people are embezzling taxpayer dollars", you are accusing them of fraud and theft. If you have proof of fraudulently activity, then do come forward with the evidence. Otherwise writing what you wrote amounts to libel. What kind of jejune moral world do you live in where working for pay is ethically suspect?

Dem Bones

2011-10-28T09:33:00.001-05:00

I heard an interview with art historian Paul Koudounaris about his new book The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses. Very interesting stuff. Here are a couple samples from the book.

He focuses on the Western cultural traditions but apparently there are some Eastern examples as well. Most of places he visited were created post-Renaissance but the Christian practice dates back to the 6th century or so and he includes some photos of Medieval sites and a modern example or two as well.

The use of bone as "decorative veneration" seems so foreign, so morbid to us today. Yet, as Koudounaris explains, these places were meant to be beautiful works of art. Many of these places were hidden away in churches so the intended audience was composed of priests, monastic officials, &c. and not a bunch of aberrant goofballs out on the fringe. This was serious, mainstream Christian stuff that had a role in salvation.

The Mill and the Cross

2011-10-26T13:51:00.001-05:00

It's been a good year for me and my love of difficult, contemplative cinema. First there was The Tree of Life and over the weekend I saw The Mill and the Cross by Polish director Lech Majewski. Art historian and critic Michael Francis Gibson had originally asked Majewski to shoot a documentary about Pieter Bruegel's 1564 work The Procession to Calvary but the director did one better by creating a narrative film that explores Brugel's motivations and takes the viewer inside the painting thanks to some imaginative green screen work.

The Mill and the Cross stars Rutger Hauer as Bruegel, the 16th century Flemish painter. As the film opens the painter is wandering an unreal rural landscape with Nicholas Jonghelinck, his patron as played by Michael York. Bruegel discusses his plans for a new painting and the camera pulls back allowing us to see them wandering the landscape of The Procession to Calvary. (For a look at the painting, see here.)

"My painting will tell many stories," the artist tells us. "It should be large enough to hold everything." At the center is a crucifixion but it is off in the distance and thusly small from the viewer's perspective. Furthermore, the man is ignored by most of the people in the painting who simply go about their lives. He will place a mill high atop a small promontory because it will be the miller, he who grinds "out the bread of life and destiny," that shall look down upon the scene instead of God gazing down from the clouds. On the left we see a town encircled by wall – the Wheel of Life. Also on that side is a tree – the Tree of Life. The sky overhead is bright and sunny. On the right we have a gloomy sky and beneath it is a circle of people – the Wheel of Death. A Catherine wheel stands in for the Tree of Death. And there is a Christ figure in the center of the painting bearing his cross and ignored.

There is very little dialogue here. Bruegel outlines his painting, Jonghelinck laments the cruelty of their Spanish overlords, and Charlotte Rampling as Mary ponders the fate of her son. We are left to cull meaning from watching the people that populate Brugel's work live their lives. Two men fell a tree in the woods. A woman with a basket on her head wanders the countryside only to be groped by a lecherous man enjoying the music of a roving musician. In another scene, a young couple finishes breakfast and then loads a calf into a large basket on a sled which they drag out onto the plain. The man is then rounded up by Spanish soldiers clad in crimson and is handed his fate atop that Catherine wheel set on the tree that those men felled. An old couple awaken and, after breaking his fast, the man kicks at a younger man sleeping on the floor who stirs and gets up. He, in turn, walks up a seemingly interminable flight of stairs and sets the mill in motion. In several scenes, the old miller looks at the gears of his machine with pride like God admiring his own handiwork on Earth.

Majewski deftly blurs the line between Bruegel's world and the world of his painting. When he wanders the painting sketching out his ideas, it's easy to say the latter. But when our painter wakes up one morning, he goes into the bedroom where most of his children are sleeping to grab his papers. Outside the window is the mill but it is the depiction of it from his painting. After this, that mill seems to be just off in the distance from every window and doorway. What is Flanders and what is Bruegel's imagination?

The film seemed to me to be ambivalent thematically or, at least, I had trouble making the images conform to any single idea. On the one hand, there is the cruelty. In addition to the man who has his flesh picked at by ravens atop the Catherine wheel, we also witness a woman being buried alive for heresy. And there's the Christ figure hounded by the Spaniards who carries his cross into the center of the painting. On the other hand, there is tenderness such as when a child suckles at its mother's breast. Plus the film is not hesitant when it comes to mirth. When Bruegel leaves that room with his papers, 3 or 4 children erupt from a mass of blankets and pillows on the bed and begin playing. Musicians perform and people dance. There are many stories here. And, high above, the miller alternately watches the gears of his mill churn like the Wheel of Fortune and gazes down on the scene.

The ending of the The Mill and the Cross only served to reinforce the ambivalence in my mind. We watch as throngs of people on a hillside dance to music in a circle. It is an ostensibly joyous occasion until you realize that this is the Wheel of Death that Bruegel noted would appear in his painting.

Bruegel's painting may have been devotional in however an unconventional way for his time, but Majewski seems to use religion as a lens to focus more earthly concerns. At one point, the miller stops the scene below him. People and horses come to a stop in mid-motion. But it was Brugel who gave him the signal to do so. And take that last scene. The Wheel of Death is comprised of joyful people dancing. What does that say about us?

Beer Notes, 25 October 2011

2011-10-25T12:34:00.003-05:00

Well, it looks like Carl Nolen's bid to take over Capital Brewery will not come to pass. But the real news in the article comes from the brewery's president, Scott Wiener:

Wiener wrote that the brewery has formed a board of advisers to help set long-term strategy, which could include expansion.

Lakefront has released Local Acre Wet Hop.

Local Acre lager is brewed with 100% Wisconsin ingredients. "This is the limited-edition, single batch, wet hop addition." Not sure if this is available in Madison or not. Anyone seen it on store shelves?

Before I move on I want to say "WTF, Lakefront?". I can find no mention of the brew on their webpage, only their Facebook page. Why do you guys insist on having people go to multiple sites to find out about your brews? The idea behind the Internet is to make the search for information easier, not more difficult.

Beer Street Journal has some news about Leinenkugel including this:

Leines is getting into barrel aging beer with some aged Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout due in a couple years. Next year sees the release of a couple new brews - a Wee Heavy Scotch Ale and an IPA. I had the Big Eddy IIPA back in 2007 and thought it was a tasty West Coast version of the style.

I wonder what's up with Leine's. The Big Eddy series debuted 4+ years ago yet they seem to avoid actually releasing the stuff with any regularity. It's like they keep dipping their toes in the craft beer waters but never dive in.

A hearty thanks to Jeff Glazer at Madison Beer Review for choosing the right person - my lady, The Dulcinea - to win a free pair of tickets to the Octoberfest extravaganza up in Kohler over this past weekend.

It was a good time. I ate too much and she drank too much. (And if I weren't driving, I would have too.) Founder's Nemesis black barley wine was incredibly tasty and incredibly potent. The Great Dane's pilsner was skunky. It tasted like I'd imagine a piece of cardboard that's been hanging in my shower for a couple years would. The two reps should have had some on the drive up before foisting it on us. The D laughed at me for telling the Big Bay rep that I really like Wavehopper. "You're such a beer geek," she taunted.

I sampled their Long Weekend IPA, which, coincidentally, isn't featured on their website. It was good stuff and distinctly non-West Coasty. Little to no citrus hoppiness and instead you get the more herby/grassy flavor. While a good beer, it would have been better if it hadn't been 35 degrees outside.

While I'm on the subject of Big Bay, the guy said that their porter is due next month but will be on draught only. While he didn't have a comprehensive list, he did say that it would make its way here to Madison and that the Coliseum Bar will probably get first dibs as they've been asking for it. This I did not expect. Do they sell a lot of Boatilla and Wavehopper there or do they just have a hard-on for porters?

Another beer that was good but would have tasted better about three months ago was Potosi's Wee Stein Wit. Nice balance of spice and orange. With this brew, their "shandy", and Czech pilsener, Potosi had a mighty impressive year, IMHO. Some of the best summer brews in the state. Plus I'm told their Tangerine IPA is excellent as well.

Lastly, Valkyrie Brewing Co. is looking to distribute in Madison but no date has been lined up. Brewmaster Randy Lee says he's been getting a lot of requests for Viking's Hot Chocolate to return so it seems likely he'll be brewing it again. Probably no Morketid (Viking's dunkel), though.

First 3D Hindi Film, RA.One, Coming to Madison

2011-10-25T09:59:00.003-05:00

RA.One looks like a blast and it's screening here in Madison tomorrow, Thursday, and Saturday. It is a big budget CGI blockbuster with a guy in a superhero suit, chase scenes on trains, lots of cars flying around, and a whole lot of broken glass. The Movie Mahal website is promoting it as the first Hindi film in 3D. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that it'll have English subtitles as the site has stated as much in the past for other films.

The 3D presentation is on Thursday and Saturday only.

Eating in Chicago Eclair to Chile Relleno

2011-10-25T06:05:00.001-05:00

While in Chicago over the weekend, The Dulcinea and I dined at a couple fine establishments.

The first was Sensational Bites, a dessert café. The D got a slice of carrot cake while I went with an eclair the size of my head.

I had a sliver of the cake and it was mmm-mmm good. Very moist and flavorful. With all the shredded carrot visible, The D said it was like there was a whole carrot in just this piece.

My eclair was great as well. Great in taste and in size. It was the equivalent of a burrito from La Bamba - the size of my head. The custard filling was among the best I've had with specks of vanilla bean in it. Much to my delight, it wasn't overly sweet. The custard was rich and creamy but not cloyingly sugary. For its part, the frosting was made from dark chocolate so it retained a goodly amount of bitterness along with that earthy chocolate flavor instead of simply being a brown-colored layer of sugar.

The other noteworthy eatery was Tuxpan Mexican Grill. It's owned and run by Jaime and Mary Cianca. It's basically a whole in the wall kind of place and the food was great. Things started out with chips and three varieties of salsa plus a pitcher of water full of lime slices. My mom order a taco plate which was a tamale and a taco, The D had enchiladas suizas, and I got chile rellenos. My dish came with two chilies - one stuffed with cheese and the other beef. All orders had beans, rice, and salad.

Mary was our server and it turned out she and her family used to live a couple doors down from my mother. And so a conversation ensued. Everything is made from scratch. Jaime does most of the cooking but Mary does a couple dishes including the chile rellenos. The tamales are are a hit with their family and I can attest that they are tasty. There were no complaints at our table and we left with full bellies. Plus the prices were very reasonable.

If you're ever in the Jefferson Park neighborhood, check Tuxpan out.

WI Book Festival 2011: The Katyn Order by Douglas Jacobson

2011-10-24T14:18:00.003-05:00

I had a busy weekend and was able to attend only one event at the Wisconsin Book Festival - Douglas Jacobson and his latest novel The Katyn Order. Here's the synopsis from his website:

The German War Machine is in retreat as the Russians advance. In Warsaw, Resistance fighters rise up against their Nazi occupiers, but the Germans retaliate, ruthlessly leveling the city. American Adam Nowak has been dropped into Poland by British intelligence as an assassin and Resistance fighter. During the Warsaw Rising he meets Natalia, a covert operative who has lost everything—just as he has. Amid the Allied power struggle left by Germany’s defeat, Adam and Natalia join in a desperate hunt for the 1940 Soviet order authorizing the murders of 20,000 Polish army officers and civilians. If they can find the Katyn Order before the Russians do, they just might change the fate of Poland.

Mr. Jacobson has some Polish blood from his mother and, although he's an engineer by trade, he likes to study overlooked episodes of World War II. He explained that his recent studies led him to the point where he had two major events that he wanted to write about. First was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and the other was the Katyń Massacre. He managed to delve into both in his latest book. The Polish Heritage Club of WI-Madison was a sponsor of the event on Saturday and there were more than a few people from Poland in attendance. Jacobson said that when he gives his presentation on The Katyn Order most audience members are unfamiliar with the Katyń Massacre. I think that most of us there on Saturday were familiar with it, one person too familiar, perhaps.

In a nutshell, the Katyń Massacre was carried out in the spring of 1940 by the Soviet Union's NKVD or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Some 20,000 Poles were slaughtered, most of them military officers but also members of the intelligentsia, i.e. – lawyers, doctors, and the like. Recall that the USSR invaded and captured eastern Poland in 1939. 200,000+ soldiers were captured and eventually freed with many conscripted to fight the Nazis. However, the officers remained detained and in 1940 Stalin signed the orders to have them killed. The victims were shot in the head and their bodies dumped into mass graves.

In 1943 as the Germans advanced through the USSR, they stumbled upon the graves in the Katyń forest and they attempted to use their discovery as a propaganda tool against the Soviets who denied everything. It wasn't until 1989 that the Soviets admitted what had been done and their government's role in it.

Mr. Jacobson gave a summary of the history and noted that, in general, Polish contributions during World War II tend to be ignored. Polish soldiers fought in every theater of the war. They fought in Poland but also in the deserts of Africa and in the skies with the RAF, for example. He read a couple passages from the book and it sounds like a very good read. Things got even better after his presentation. In the audience on Saturday was Dr. Waclaw Szybalski. A native of Poland, he immigrated to the United States in 1950. I attended a birthday celebration for him this past summer and learned about the many contributions he has made to the field of genetics. The list at the link above sounds impressive but when someone explained what all the meant to me in layman's terms at the party, it was even more so.

So, while I knew about Dr. Szybalski's contributions to science, I didn't know until Saturday that he was a Polish military officer and escaped being murdered in the Katyń Forest in 1940. He explained how the Soviet Army occupied his hometown of Lwów but that they were very disorganized and he basically slipped through the cracks after discarding his uniform. He also noted that he heard about the massacre a few weeks after it had happened and that the American and English governments knew all about it during the war but they didn't press the issue with the Soviets as they were allies and didn't want to upset Stalin. This attitude carried on after the war was over. It was fascinating to hear some of the history mentioned in Jacobson's book told by someone who witnessed it first-hand.

An audience member also from Poland noted that, prior to the Solidarity Movement, just mentioning the word "Katyń" would get one arrested and imprisoned.

As you can imagine, it was a very interesting Q&A session. Cheers to Mr. Jacobson who was generous enough to allow the focus to be moved from his book to the larger history behind it and to someone who was alive and there when it happened. I think he was as grateful to hear other people's stories as was the rest of the audience.

The Peril of Not Living in a Major City

2011-10-21T10:05:00.001-05:00

Roland Emmerich's first non-CGI disaster fest in over a decade, Anonymous, was to have opened today at Sundance.

Yet the Elizabethan potboiler is not playing according to their Showtimes pages. Why is that? Sony Pictures has changed the release schedule at the last minute.

Instead, in an unusual change so close to a planned launch, the studio will open the picture, about a British earl who some claim was the true author of William Shakespeare's plays, in only 250 theaters next weekend. Sony had originally planned to launch the movie in thousands of theaters.

Tracking surveys indicated that audiences were not that interested in seeing the film and it was likely headed for a very soft opening of less than $5 million. Sony is now hoping to generate buzz and positive reviews to boost audience excitement by opening the movie only in major cities Oct. 28. The studio then plans to expand its run to more locations throughout November.

Think about that. Only a few million - just not good enough. Uff da! While Anonymous' story and Emmerich's films generally don't interest me all that much, I read at IMDB that the movie is "The first major full-length motion picture to be shot with the Arri ALEXA high-definition digital-video camera." Now, that interests me. I'd go see it on this basis alone. Hopefully it'll end up here next month.

Scalia Issues Originalist Verdict on Pizza

2011-10-20T10:07:00.002-05:00

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was in Chicago earlier this week and he issued a characteristically originalist ruling on pizza:

“I do indeed like so-called ‘deep dish pizza.’ It’s very tasty,” the high court’s most outspoken conservative said after a moment’s hesitation. “But it should not be called ‘pizza.’ It should be called ‘a tomato pie.’ Real pizza is Neapolitan. [from Naples, Italy] It is thin. It is chewy and crispy, OK?”

More "real pizza" is coming to Madison. Naples 15 will soon be opening at the graveyard of restaurants, Butler Plaza.

Salvatore Di Scala, who plans to open Naples 15 at 15 N. Butler St. in December, called from the island of Ischia near Naples, Italy, where he said he is importing flour for his pizza dough.

Di Scala reports that his wife is pregnant, due around the time the restaurant is expected to open.

The restaurant will replace Las Cazuelas Mexican restaurant in Butler Plaza. It was the original location of Cafe Porta Alba, where Di Scala did some consulting work.

Di Scala intends to serve authentic Neapolitan pizza and eventually get certification from the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana, an international nonprofit organization founded in the mid-1990s by a group of Neapolitan pizza makers, who instituted strict pizza-making requirements.

Born in Naples, Di Scala was raised 20 miles away on the island of Ischia. He considers Madison his "second home."

Is Walker Getting Ready to Drop the Hammer?

2011-10-19T19:54:00.000-05:00

Rumor has it that Capitol Police have had their shifts changed to hours, including 12-hour stints, resembling those from earlier this year when there were some protests going on there.

Is he going to announce the end of PTO for state employees?

Dispatch from the Food Carts

2011-10-19T16:17:00.000-05:00

Back when it was hot outside I ate lunch with the Eating in Madison A to Z gang. We dined on the comestibles from Thai-riffic. Head over there for an account of our dining adventure.

About Those iPads...

2011-10-19T11:54:00.000-05:00

Earlier this month it was announced that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., the public/private hybrid agency that replaced the Department of Commerce, purchased 73 iPads for a total of about $60,000, which includes activation fees and monthly data plans. Not sure if that includes anything else like Bluetooth keyboards or not.

A couple days ago Ryan Waal editorialized against the move over at The Daily Cardinal saying, essentially, that surely the state could have gotten a better deal on some laptops. He rightly points out that one of Governor Walker's mantra's is "We're broke."

Waal is angry that the taxpayer footed the bill for the devices but he misses a crucial point. The issue really isn't how much we paid upfront for those iPads, but rather what the Total Cost of Ownership or TCO is going to be on them. In other words, how much is the taxpayer going to pay for those devices over their lifespans? For example, you can buy an inkjet printer dirt cheap but that doesn't represent the TCO because you're going to be buying ink for years at $30+ a pop. The TCO of that printer is going to be the purchase price, the cost of ink refills as well as paper, and any money you spend maintaining it. Do you have to call HP and pay to get some tech support for the device? Well, that's part of the TCO too.

As far as these iPads go, I will admit up front that I have never touched one and have never spoken to anyone who deals with them in the enterprise. That caveat aside, taxpayers should be weary. I presume that money will be spent to deploy the iPads. Money would have also been expended to deploy laptops but is going to a new device and new OS going to increase those costs? Do all the users now have to have iTunes in order to get their device going? Will the WEDC infrastructure inherited from DOC have to be modified? Will new applications have to be written to work with Safari? (Is Safari on an iPad a mobile version?) Will new apps have to be purchased so that WEDC users can read and manipulate PDFs and MS Office files? Are they going to have to pay new license fees to Microsoft? What happens if a user loses the device? Does the iPad have some native system for WEDC IT to wipe it remotely or will a third party app have to be purchased to ensure that all those secret documents about luring mom and pop stores from Rockford to Beloit aren't compromised? To the best of my knowledge, iPads cannot join domains so how are they going to be managed? Do new IT people have to be hired? Or will the current staff be trained? Will iPads affect any long-term IT plans for the agency?

Tom Thieding, WEDC's spokesman, is quoted in the above article as saying, "There was a need for a technology upgrade…The old Department of Commerce - it was just lumbering along." OK, fine, but that doesn't mean that iPads are the solution. They may be or they may not be. What I get out of Thieding's comments is that the iPads were the cheapest solution in upfront costs but not necessarily the best solution in terms of either total cost or of fitting into the current IT environment.

IT staffs should keep an eye on this. According to one vendor, while various WI state agencies have bought the occasional iPad for executive staff, no agency has done a rollout like this one.

So the issue for the people of the great broke state of Wisconsin isn't whether WEDC could have gotten 73 laptops for less than $60,000, it's whether the TCO of 73 iPads is less than that of 73 laptops, tablets, or some combination thereof and, because, quite frankly, this whole thing just doesn't sound right, whether or not WEDC employees will be able to do their jobs effectively with the iPads.

Nothing Like a Refreshing Arctic Ale

2011-10-18T16:21:00.000-05:00

Having recently read The Terror, a fictional account of Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, I was interested to find out about the existence of this stuff:

Allsopp's Arctic Ale was brewed in 1852 for Captain Sir Edward Belcher and his crew who were to set out in search of Franklin's expedition. Belcher was not successful but, to his credit, one of his ships survived along with his crew. This bottle is infamous because of the Ebay incident where the original owner misspelled Allsopp as "Allsop" and sold the bottle for only a few hundred dollars. The winner of that auction turned around and reposted it there with correct spelling and more info. He/she got much better bids.

I guess this stuff was 10%+ ABV and was a barley wine. In Belcher's book, The Last of the Arctic Voyages, he says on page 21: "...Allsopp. That name will live for ages in the recollection of all Polars."

Belcher equipped at least one of his ships with brewing equipment and on page 339, he describes the results as being "much esteemed". Fuck, if I were north of the Arctic Circle with pack ice closing in, any beer would be highly esteemed by me. Still, they don't do adventures like that anymore. When did you ever hear about a space shuttle crew bringing a homebrew kit with them?

Some gentlemen are making a movie wherein the cycle up nort to the Arctic and recreate the brew. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to brew a beer which leads me to believe its more of a publicity stunt than anything. If the pretty awful Brew Masters show is anything to go by, I can just imagine what this movie will be like. Camera must be moving at all times and use lots of canted angles because otherwise producers will assume viewers will just get bored. No shot can last more than 1 second - ibid. It'll have a cheesy metal soundtrack - ibid. It must have danger for repeats on Fox so they'll pull a Robert Flaherty and hire handlers to plant polar bears near the set. It'll be like Scott of the Antarctic!

Cast from John Carpenter's THE THING Watching Footage from the New Prequel

2011-10-18T10:25:00.000-05:00

Madison Metro's Windfalls

2011-10-18T10:11:00.001-05:00

Madison Metro received some good news: it is receiving a bit over $5 million in federal grant money.

Madison Metro spokesperson Mick Rusch said the grant would allow Metro to continue running at its current rate despite the economy while also allowing for improvements to the transit system.

“Before this grant, we saw a decrease in funding,” Rusch said. “This grant allows us to continue replacing our buses at our current rate of about ten a year, or 100 over ten years.”

The grant also includes funds to purchase new wireless fare boxes, which Rusch said would allow Metro to better track passengers and fare usage. Data will be automatically downloaded to Metro’s computer systems, allowing the company to easily keep track of passenger traffic.

Alder Scott Resnick, District 8, said the money would also allow the city to update several unsafe or decrepit bus shelters.

As I said, this is surely good news and I'd like to make a recommendation for the next time Metro gets a windfall. I have bitched in the past about how useless bus stop signs are here in Madison. They tell you where a stop is and what routes serve it but absolutely nothing about the routes themselves. What's the frequency of the routes? Where do they go? What hours do they run? None of this handy information is available on the signs. So allow me to suggest upgrading to something like this:

These are the new signs for Seattle Metro riders. Notice how they actually give the information riders need. In addition to the routes that serve the stop, you are told where the routes go and when you can expect them to be at the stop. Handy.

TV shows you saw as a kid...

2011-10-18T10:00:00.001-05:00

...that took on new meanings when you watched them as an adult.

Exhibit A: The Gong Show

Autumn Means...

2011-10-17T16:24:00.000-05:00

...pan de muerto!

I picked up a loaf at Pan Y Pan over the weekend. Mighty tasty.

The Revolution's Soundtrack Will Be Polka

2011-10-17T15:44:00.001-05:00

At least in Cleveland.

Randy Hopper Busted for DUI

2011-10-17T15:26:00.000-05:00

I guess Randy Hopper is still hurting after that recall election. He was arrested yesterday for suspicion of drunk driving.

Police said that they've cited a former state senator for drunken driving.

Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Mark Strand said his agency got a cell phone call from a driver who reported Randy Hopper was all over the road on U.S. Highway 151 late Sunday afternoon.

Strand said Hopper pulled into a grocery store parking lot, where a deputy arrested him. He was released early Monday. Strand declined to release Hopper's blood alcohol levels.

Lock and Load

2011-10-17T15:23:00.000-05:00

Here in Madison, we're wondering whether people will be able to bring their concealed weapons to various digs around town once the new law goes into effect. Can I pack heat in the Capitol? Will I be able to take my sawed off blunderbuss into the Co-op? After talking with a couple stateys and a Capitol Police officer over the past few months about this issue, I am convinced that the Republicans who drew up this legislation are a bunch of fucking nimrods who don't have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel. None of them could tell me who would be able to carry in various buildings. Plus there are all the exceptions. You can't CC on bus, but you can carry on the UW campus, just not inside facilities. But that excludes faculty.

The legislation was apparently not a model of clarity.

One thing I learned a couple weeks ago is that it's not just people in Madison who don't want to go shopping with Bill Hickok or wait for hours at the DMV with Ike Clanton. I stopped at a gas station a little east of Fond du Lac and lo and behold there was a sign on the door saying no handguns allowed in the store. When you walk inside, there's a little ledge with newspapers and such. Well, there was a handbill for a venison processing plant so we're talking about an area where people own and use guns. This was rural Wisconsin, after all. It makes me think that, when the Dems regain control of Wisconsin state government, it might not be that hard to repeal the CC law, pressure from the NRA not withstanding.

I now read that the Willy Street Co-op is going to ban guns in their stores. While a taste for organic food and the proclivity to carry a pistol are not mutually exclusive, I highly doubt this policy will be problematic. Still, I really want to see one of the hippies there confront a shopper packing heat, especially a shopper that drives an SUV and uses the Jenifer Street driveway for in- and egress.

R.I.P. Motion Picture Film Cameras

2011-10-17T14:54:00.000-05:00

Sad news. ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have all stopped manufacturing motion picture film cameras.

While the debate has raged over whether or not film is dead, ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have quietly ceased production of film cameras within the last year to focus exclusively on design and manufacture of digital cameras. That's right: someone, somewhere in the world is now holding the last film camera ever to roll off the line.

"The demand for film cameras on a global basis has all but disappeared," says ARRI VP of Cameras, Bill Russell, who notes that the company has only built film cameras on demand since 2009. "There are still some markets--not in the U.S.--where film cameras are still sold, but those numbers are far fewer than they used to be. If you talk to the people in camera rentals, the amount of film camera utilization in the overall schedule is probably between 30 to 40 percent."

How good are digital motion picture cameras these days? Can they match the resolution of film? Color reproduction? Do they really look as good as a nice 70mm print?

Eating in Madison with JM & Nichole

2011-10-17T10:53:00.000-05:00

Read what happened when The Dulcinea and I joined JM & Nichole at Stalzy's Deli. I recall JM inhaling a triple decker and being happier than a pig in shit at the root beer selection. And there was something about pyramids or pharaohs or ancient Egypt which was funny. Maybe Nichole or The D remembers what it was.

Detective Dee Makes It to Madison

2011-10-13T15:35:00.003-05:00

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame starts here in Madison tomorrow. Kudos to Sundance for bringing it to town. I saw it 2+ weeks ago and my review is here. I thought it was a blast. Highly recommended.

The Daily Page 86s Blog Post About Madison Bars & Racism

2011-10-13T12:28:00.001-05:00

I have noticed that Jack Craver's blog post entitled "Nothing new: Madison bars don't like blacks" has been removed. Luckily Google Cache has it.

Editors will let David Blaska fill his Daily Page-sponsored blog with lies, defamation, &c. but letting another blogging relate his personal experience is just too much. Sad.

Corner Store Closing?

2011-10-13T12:18:00.001-05:00

I drove by The Corner Store on Willy Street the other day and saw a big sign in the window saying the building was for sale or for lease. Is The Corner Store R.I.P. or are the building owners just looking move on? Anyone heard?

Marine Corp Vets Have Words For Sean Hannity

2011-10-12T15:12:00.001-05:00

Weekend at Wyalusing

2011-10-12T14:11:00.000-05:00

Nothing says camping like a face full of smores.

Last month I packed my gear and went to Wyalusing State Park with my friend Dogger and Miss Regan. I'd never been there before so it was great fun seeing everything for the first time.

We did a lot of hiking. The first trail we hit was the Sugar Maple. It was a really nice hike with ravines everywhere.

(This is an ex-tree!)

The trail led us to Pictured Rock Cave. You can't see it from the trail, however. Instead you walk down a winding path…

…and then all at once it comes into view.

Here it is from another angle.

The layers of sandstone were gorgeous. Unfortunately The Dulcinea's new camera had a hard time with the subtle maize yellow of the rock when I took photos close-up and I had no idea how to adjust the white balance. Still, you can still see the gradation.

However, I discovered that it does have a panorama feature which stitches three photos together and it worked nicely. Click on the photo for a larger version.

There was water dripping down from above us and vines dangling - it was just beautiful. Very peaceful. Regan enjoyed the sand and spent a lot of time digging. She didn't want to leave but leave we did. Next stop was Point Lookout on the north side of the park. The view was amazing. You face north, towards the Wisconsin River and looking west you can see where it dumps into the Mighty Mississip.

Not only was the view spectacular, but we were also looking down at the route taken by Marquette and Joliet. They canoed this way back in the summer of 1673. An eagle was gliding out in front of us but too far out for my small camera to get a good shot. I could have stood there and watched for hours.

Next stop was Treasure Cave. Getting there involved going down the bluff quite a ways on an often narrow and always highly perilous trail. But our almost preternatural skills at walking down steps made the trek uneventful. To get into the cave, you have to walk up a flight of those steps like they have in submarines that are basically just ladders. Here's Regan doing a little spelunking in an opening off of the main chamber.

And behind some rocks at the entrance is a narrow crawl space that isn't visible unless you wander behind them.

Despite being mildly claustrophobic, I crawled in followed by Regan. We didn't get too far because my mind kept postulating that it would collapse on us if we went any farther or we'd get to the end only to discover a Silurian outpost and then we'd really be in trouble.

After making the long haul back up the side of the bluff, we returned to camp. I think we had planned to go back out and do some more exploring after refreshing ourselves but those silos of Flaming Damsel just went down a little too smoothly. Ergo resumption of hiking would have to wait until the next day.

This was the first time camping for me in a long time prior to this and it was so nice to be cooking flesh over an open flame and having the time to just sit and stare at the fire. I did a lot of hunting for wood and didn't notice until the morning that my clothes had a lot of burdocks in them. It was also rather cute to hear the fear in Regan's voice when our lantern was no longer visible from the campsite.

The next day we went back to the north side of the park. I believe this is Council Point.

Hitting the Sand Cave Trail we came upon Sand Cave.

Again, very pretty sandstone layers. There were other kids there Regan's age so it was next to impossible to get her moving down the trail once again. There are a brace Sand Caves and the above is the bigger of the two. Unfortunately the second is guarded by a fence and inaccessible to people.

Our last hiking venture was on the Sentinel Ridge Trail which follows the Mississippi River from above. There is a series of Indian effigy mounds along the path.

There is also a Passenger Pigeon Monument with a plaque that reads something like "Here's to the Passenger Pigeon, victim of man's avarice and stupidity." Quite fitting.

Off in the distance we could see a barge hauling freight south on the river. Sentinel Ridge is covered in oak trees and, when we were tired of acorns hitting us in the head, we went down to the boat landing. And there it was, Old Man River.

I'd never seen the Mississippi River up close before, only driven over it at several points. Well, perhaps I saw it in the Twin Cities but that would have been when I was a kid and have no memory of it. But I finally got to see the storied river. Mark Twain wrote about it as did William Faulkner. Floods have inspired songs from "When the Levee Breaks" to "Tear-Stained Eye". There wasn't much out on the river except for a couple fishing boats out in the distance. Very serene.

There are railroad tracks near the shore and Regan was excited because we had two trains pass by at once.

The Mississippi River and trains – two of the greatest metaphors in the American lexicon all in one spot.

We were there before the leaves started turning in earnest and I can only imagine just how beautiful Wyalusing must be in the autumn. Perhaps I'll find out next year.

Paying for Civilized Society

2011-10-12T10:49:00.000-05:00

Towns and cities across America are in a financial bind these days and Madison is no exception. But while we argue about funding for our city's performing arts center, other municipalities are going a step farther.

Take Highland Park, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It's behind on its electric bill so DTE Energy repossessed most of their street lights.

Most of the city's street lights have been repossessed because officials failed to pay a multimillion-dollar utility bill, giving rise to concerns about safety and crime in darkened neighborhoods.

DTE Energy crews have removed about 1,400 light poles from Highland Park as part of a settlement that allowed the city to avoid paying $4 million in unpaid bills going back several years. DTE, which says the work will be completed by Oct. 31, has replaced 200 lights with newer models on street corners, but most neighborhoods remain in the dark.

Unsurprisingly, some have used the darkness as cover for theft.

"After they took the street light from in front of my business, someone climbed onto my roof and stole an air conditioning unit," said Bobby Hargrove, owner of Hargrove Machinery Sales on Oakland Avenue, who also claims a police officer asked him for money to beef up his protection.

Even worse is the news that the Topeka City Council is tossing around the idea of decriminalizing domestic violence to save money.

Last month, the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office, facing a 10% budget cut, announced that the county would no longer be prosecuting misdemeanors, including domestic violence cases, at the county level. Finding those cases suddenly dumped on the city and lacking resources of their own, the Topeka City Council is now considering repealing the part of the city code that bans domestic battery. The thinking here is that the county won’t let domestic violence go unpunished in Topeka and so will be forced to step in and start prosecuting it again if the city won’t. Basically, it’s a big game of chicken–where the “chicken” is, I suppose, the chump who won’t allow domestic abusers to walk free?

"Collateral Damage" = People

2011-10-12T09:56:00.000-05:00

Here's a video from a group called No More Victims "that connects American communities with war-injured children and their families. Community participants band together to learn how the child was injured, assess the child’s current situation, and work to meet the most pressing needs of the child and family."

This Iraqi girl is 6 years-old and was shot in the head by a member of the U.S. forces in her homeland. (Not sure if that means a soldier or a Blackwater contractor.) She was brought over here for medical treatment. It's amazing that she is all smiles and so winsome. I had to stop watching when she says that, if she could meet the person who shot her, she'd simply ask "Why?"