Sam Adams Shows Some Lager Love, Rocky Gets Revenge on the Bitter Woman, and Vintage Fires Up the Lagering Tank

Samuel Adams may be a macro craft brewery but they brew some tasty beers. I've had a smattering of their limited release brews recently (Tasman Red, Norse Legend, Cinder Bock) and they were excellent. SA aren't afraid to let their barley pops sit in the cold for several weeks. Plus they are not afraid to tweak the stalwart lager. Coming to bottles soon (if not in stores already) are a blueberry flavored lager as well as an IPA - India Pale Lager.





As far as I know, these are new to the SA line-up and join other lager variations like the Winter Lager which is akin to a wit and Alpine Spring which they bill as a Helles-spring bock-Kellerbier hybrid kind of thing.

Closer to home, Tyranena reports that Rocky's Revenge, a bourbon barrel aged brown ale, has over taken Bitter Woman IPA as their best seller.

Basically since its debut over ten years ago, the Bitter Woman IPA has been, by far, our best selling beer. When giving a tour, many have heard me proclaim the Bitter Woman to be nearly 30% of our production... Well, somewhere in 2012, our dear old lady was shoved aside by a serpentine lake monster.... Mostly attributed to its growing popularity in Chicago, Minneapolis and Indiana markets, production of Rocky's Revenge has now officially surpassed Bitter Woman IPA to become our most produced and best-selling brand.

Even closer to home Vintage Brewing have announced a new beer on their Facebook page:

NEW BEER ALERT! It's mighty rare when our brewers commit the fermenting tank space to making true lagers...so it's with special pride we debut our 2013 "Snowflake" beer project: RYE BOCK! Full-bodied and richly malty, with just a shade of spicy rye character, and now on tap!

All of my bitching about lagers to Scott has finally paid off. I wonder if he had some rye left over from this year's batch of Tippy Toboggan.

How Banksters Avoided Prosecution

A Frontline episode called "The Untouchables" which investigates why no executives of financial institutions responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis have not been prosecuted. Gee, Wall Street gives millions of dollars to Obama and lo and behold he comes out and says they did nothing illegal and no one goes to jail. Go figure.

Watch The Untouchables on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

More Proof the Terrorists Have Won

Here's how you know the terrorists have won: when a school deems a suggestion by a kindergartener to have a soap bubble shootin' match with a friend as a "terrorist threat".

A 5-year-old girl was suspended from school earlier this week after she made what the school called a “terrorist threat.”

Her weapon of choice? A small, Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower.

The kindergartner, who attends Mount Carmel Area Elementary School in Pennsylvania, caught administrators’ attention after suggesting she and a classmate should shoot each other with bubbles.

“I think people know how harmless a bubble is. It doesn’t hurt,” said Robin Ficker, an attorney for the girl’s family. According to Ficker, the girl, whose identity has not been released, didn’t even have the bubble gun toy with her at school.

The kindergartner was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation during her 10-day suspension, which was later reduced to two days. The evaluation deemed the girl normal and not a threat to others, Ficker said.

I'm a liberal and take no pride in Barack Obama

Dave Cieslewicz's recent blog post at The Daily Page - "I'm a liberal and still proud that Barack Obama is my president" - makes him sound like the poster boy for Chris Hedges' dead liberal class.

He spends an inordinate amount of time praising Obama for just being a swell guy.

We have a thoughtful and very intelligent president who thinks before he speaks, and speaks in complete English sentences that form coherent thoughts... But Barack Obama is a good and decent and intelligent man, cool-headed in a crisis, a man who loves his country, and is guiding it as best he can in polarized times and in a complex world.

Being thoughtful, intelligent, cool-headed, and country-loving doesn't make you an effective president. One can find these characteristics in some of the worst despots in history. If you're flat ass broke and living on the streets, you could argue that Obama's thoughtfulness and intelligence aren't worth a shit; similarly, if you're a sheep farmer on the other side of the globe and a U.S. drone blows your family to bits, words like "good" and "decent" are not likely the terms you would use to describe Barack Obama. This is all hagiographic BS.

Cieslewicz admits that Obama is not perfect and he's right – presidents can never be everything we hope for. But when you can donate thousands of dollars to a candidate's campaign or your industry donates millions, that candidate is a little more perfect for you than he is for the average person out there.

He goes on to list the president's accomplishments:

We have a president who has carefully wound down two wars, improved health coverage for millions of Americans, guided the economy back towards sustained growth, moved along with the nation toward complete inclusion of gays and lesbians, saved the American auto companies and their jobs, and generally (with the big exception of climate change) done right by our environment.

Sure, most of our troops left Iraq, but Obama did his darnedest to keep them there and we haven't left Iraq. And we haven't left Afghanistan yet either.

Cieslewicz conveniently didn't mention the perpetual war we are currently engaged in, what Tom Junod calls "The War that Obama Forgot".

In a speech delivered at Oxford, in England, Jeh Johnson, then the general counsel for the Department of Defense, stated unequivocally that “the United States government is in an armed conflict against Al Qaeda and associated forces, to which the laws of armed conflict apply.” He declared that “it is an unconventional war against an unconventional enemy,” but that “President Obama...has insisted that our efforts in pursuit of this enemy stay firmly rooted in conventional legal principles.” And he warned, at last, that “in the current conflict with Al Qaeda, I can offer no prediction about when this conflict will end, or whether we are, as Winston Churchill described it, near the ‘beginning of the end.’”

We've always been at war with Eastasia!

I sure hope the Affordable Care Act turns out OK. No doubt many will benefit from it. But what could have been had Obama not taken the single payer option off the table?

What does Cieslewicz mean with the comment about Obama having "guided the economy back towards sustained growth"? Heck, maybe he's right. But during his first term "Deep poverty reached its highest point on record" and in the afterglow of his victory in November of last year CBS noted "U.S. Poverty Rate Spikes". If the correlation between retail sales and employment continues, then the "jobs market is heading south" soon. The strength or weakness of the economy is due to many factors, many being out of the president's control. But if Cieslewicz wants to credit Obama with guiding the economy towards sustained growth, then Obama also deserves credit for guiding millions of Americans into poverty.

Obama should be commended for saying in his inaugural address "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law," but this very day White House Press Secretary Jay Carney admonished the hopeful not to look to Obama for action because he "still thinks gay marriage is a state issue". Apparently Obama will talk the talk but not do much more than that.

As for the auto industry bailout, it sounds good but we taxpayers aren't off the hook. If you won't read the article for yourself then let me give you this quote: "In short, the bailout has merely kicked the GM can down the road and left taxpayers to pick up the tens of billions in bills."

From what I've read, Obama has a pretty good environmental record except for the really fucking big exception of climate change.

Our former mayor paraphrases MLK by writing, "the long arc of this administration is toward progress and toward justice." What progress and justice for whom? I found this statement distasteful. MLK chastized "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift" while Obama is keen on spending $1.2 trillion on "national security". As Glen Ford wrote in his piece "Don’t You Dare Conflate MLK and Obama":

Surely, the Dr. King who, in his 1967 “Where Do We Go from Here” speech called for a guaranteed annual income would never have abided Obama’s targeting of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the weeks before his 2009 inauguration. Forty-five years ago, King’s position was clear: “Our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes.” The very notion of a grand austerity bargain with the Right would have been anathema to MLK.

Contrast the perpetual war Obama champions with MLK's statement that the United States is "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" and one which extols "the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long". Now, I never met Dr. King and I've only read a couple of his speeches but I just don't see him lauding most of Barack Obama's foreign policy.

What would Dr. King say about the justice system that Obama's cronies, including Eric Holder, have created wherein we lock up people for drug possession and throw innocent people into Gitmo while the banksters roam free, absolved from helping to bring the world economy to its knees. Look at the HSBC settlement. A bank that laundered drug money and dealt with clients that had terrorist ties gets a slap on the wrist – a pittance of a fine. And those poor bank executives have to partially defer their bonuses.

So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses?

Wall Street executives are now basically above the law thanks, in large part, to Obama. This is the Obama administration's march toward justice? Instances of gross malfeasance on the part of bankers goes virtually unpunished and taxpayers bail the banks out. Perhaps this is what Cieslewicz meant by the president guiding us towards sustained economic growth. Add in telecoms receiving retroactive immunity for their crimes. Torture? Eric Holder refuses to hold anyone accountable. The War on Drugs which is decimating black communities around the country. Would Dr. King recognize a candidate who pledged the most transparent administration ever and then turns around only to maintain a secret kill list and assassinates American citizens without due process as someone who moves justice forward? Cieslewicz has the gall to see all of this (and more) and call it justice invoking Dr. King all the while?

Cieslewicz's post ends with him saying he's proud that Obama is his president. Pride is an interesting word because it is a selfish word. It's not the act of feeling good because you recognize the goodness in others; it's feeling good about oneself because you see yourself reflected in the actions of others. It's a narcissitic sense of satisfaction. This is perhaps the reason Cieslewicz called Obama intelligent twice. Instead of taking a long, hard look in the mirror and seeing the cruel “justice” meted out by our Hellfire missiles, the growing poverty and widening income gap, the new African front of Obama's perpetual war, &c., Cieslewicz looks to find what he wants to see.

Former L.A. Archbishop & Cronies Helped Paedophile Priests Escape Justic

I am shocked, SHOCKED! to read that Catholic officials in Los Angeles covered for paedophile priests.

Two Catholic Church officials in California plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement as late as 1987, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, citing newly released internal Church records.

The records show that Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony, who is now retired, and his top adviser on child sex abuse cases, Monsignor Thomas Curry, worked with other Church officials in 1987 to send priests accused of abuse out of state to avoid prosecution, the newspaper said.

Mahony and Curry also tried to keep pedophile priests from confessing to therapists who would be obligated to report the crimes, the newspaper said, citing the records, which were released on Los Angeles Times' website.

Beware the Sundance Site

Sundance Cinemas' website is being flagged as a source of malware/viruses by Firefox.



Internet Explorer's SmartScreen filter, however, doesn't give any warning.

The Hobbit in Glorious 48 FPS

Before seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey I'd read mixed reviews and a lot of panning of Peter Jackson's decision to go High Frame Rate. Ergo I saw the 3D HFR version to judge for myself. I thoroughly enjoyed Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies and I expected to be entertained here.

The Hobbit was published in 1937 and is a tale for kids. It features the adventures of Bilbo Baggins who teams up with the King Thorin and his band of merry dwarves who are keen on getting back their treasure at Lonely Mountain which the dragon Smaug claimed in a rampage of death and destruction. Oh, and Gandalf is along to help too. I read the book back in 1985 and have very little recollection of the plot's details so I can't bore you here with a book vs. film smackdown.

Instead I will say that I was genuinely entertained by Jackson's take on the venerable story. Ian Holm reprises his role as Bilbo in his twilight years for the film's opening. Bilbo begins writing an account of his adventures for his nephew Frodo, who briefly appears here. Then the movie's prologue switches gears and gives us the backstory of how Smaug crushed the dwarven stronghold at Lonely Mountain, saw the dwarves driven before him, and then heard the lamentations of their women.

The story begins proper with the younger Bilbo, played by Martin Freeman, being approached by Gandalf to help Thorin on his quest, by taking on the mantle of "burglar". Bilbo refuses as he is very happy leading a quiet life of eating and contemplation in the Shire, thank you. Gandalf attempts to get Bilbo to reconsider by having Thorin and his gang show up at Bilbo's home for some merry making. Still, the hobbit is unmoved and it is only the next day that he changes his mind and is off on the adventure of a lifetime.

From here there is an encounter with trolls and a stop at Rivendell where Elrond uncovers more text on Gandalf's map and a council is held featuring Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Saruman. The party wanders the Misty Mountains and, in avoiding the game of stone giants, end up in a goblin keep. Plus they encounter Radagast as played by Sylvester McCoy who was the star of Doctor Who in the late 80s.

Being a fan of McCoy's, I was keen to see what he brought to the film. It was an inspired bit of casting. Regardless of how Tolkien envisioned the brown wizard, McCoy plays him as a crazy wizard uncle with slightl manic tendencies who is completely preoccupied by nature in all its incarnations and has a sled drawn by rabbits. I have only one complaint about him. Radagast is Gandalf's equal; they are two of a handful of wizards sent to Earth by the demiurge to assist in the fight against Sauron. Having his hair full of bird shit seemed inappropriate to me. The guy is a very powerful being and that seemed like a puerile joke to appeal to children more than anything to me. But McCoy is a great actor and moves beyond this. His mood turns serious when confronting the evil in the forest and the presence of the Necromancer and he proves heroic when he tries to lure a band of orcs away from Bilbo and company.

The childish humor returns as our heroes escape from the goblin stronghold. The party falls down a shaft after having killed the goblin chieftain only to have the latter's corpse fall on top of them. While this no doubt appeals to 10-year olds, I found it overly cartoonish. I would also add that our heroes do a lot of falling down into deep caverns and emerge with nary a scratch. And then there are the trolls who sneeze into their dinner giving nary a thought. I can't recall how the trolls were characterized in the book but, again, just a little too far over on the childish side for me.

Despite these missteps, I simply had a good time at the cinema. Jackson's special effects crew again did a magnificent job bringing Middle Earth to life on the screen. The battles and chase scenes are exciting and the story is peppered with bits of comic relief, not all of it childish. The Hobbit is just a grand old adventure. I also must credit the filmmakers with a wonderful ability to shift from light-hearted moments to very serious ones seamlessly. I liked how the movie changed tone and did so in a way that felt natural. For example, Radagast is the absent-minded professor one minute and the next he is dealing with a pall being cast over the forest yet the change in tone doesn't feel abrupt or forced. And Gollum's appearance was most welcome. He is a great character who is pathetic and fear-inducing at the same time. The scene here is fantastic. It's slow moving in contrast to the battle raging above and the mixed emotions evoked for Gollum also contrast with the good and evil, black and white ethos of the story.

Lastly I want to say that the high frame rate was wonderful. I liked how the images were sharper and more realistic. Scenes with people running seemed like they were sped up at first but I got used to it. Personally, the HFR just felt like another visual style. Some movies desaturate colors to achieve a certain look or favor a particular color palette, for example. Film noir is characterized by the use of shadows. HFR is just another technique in a cinematographer's kit bag to achieve a distinct visual style. The 3D seemed to complement the heightened realism well.

Who, if anyone, will take up the HFR challenge next?

Cloud Atlas: The Movie

Having read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas I was keen on seeing the film adaptation. The novel is fairly sizable and a relatively difficult read so I thought it would be interesting to see how it translated to the big screen. I must admit to some hesitation because, although I like Tom Tykwer, the Wachowskis give me pause as I think The Matrix films were just awful.

Cloud Atlas in both its incarnations tells six stories. The first is of Adam Ewing and takes place in the 19th century as he sails from the Chatham Islands back to San Francisco. Robert Frobisher is the protagonist in the second. It takes place in the 1930s as the young man becomes the amanuensis to an aging composer. Next we shoot forward to the 1970s as Luisa Rey investigates a nuclear power plant and claims by whistleblowers that it's unsafe and was at risk of a meltdown. In the present day Timothy Cavendish is hoodwinked into checking himself into a nursing home by his own brother. The penultimate tale is of Sonmi~451, a clone who, like all her kind, performs menial labor in the Seoul of the distant future. Lastly we have the post-apocalyptic story of Zachry, who speaks in a broken English dialect, as he deals with the brutish Kona and helps the lovely Meronym who hails from a distant land. In the book, each story is bifurcated and presented in ascending then descending chronological order so it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The film intercuts amongst all the stories constantly.

Cloud Atlas is about the horrors we humans visit upon one another which is illustrated through time and space. Slavery is present in most of the stories, for example. Here various actors play multiple roles to illustrate continuity in humanity plus there is the comet-like birthmark which appears in the book. But it's also about working to let the better angels of our nature shine through and to build a better future through our good deeds.

Unfortunately the movie is a bit ham-fisted when it comes to all of this. The book demonstrated the continuity of human nature with the variety of times and settings of the story plus the birthmark, which is referenced but is not a major issue, and the fact that characters from the previous story are referenced in the succeeding one. Tykwer and the Wachowskis take this many steps further by having actors play multiple characters and it really felt like I was being hit over the head. Hugo Weaving is the baddie in each story and I can definitely see merit in having him reappear to perhaps emphasize the unchanging nature of evil or constant moral challenges it presents but having a dozen or more actors do the same was more novelty than anything.

In moving from page to screen things are going to get lost but, overall, the movie did a good job of retaining important elements. Some instances of cruelty were lost (that the Kona take Zachry's people as slaves was omitted as was the history of the Chathams involving the Maori committing genocide on the Moriori) and I remain ambivalent about that but it certainly doesn't diminish the film because it portrays plenty of evil. However, I do feel that Frobisher got short shrift here. His story and that of Timothy Cavendish expose human bondage on a more personal level. They don't involve one group of people enslaving or killing another group. These two stories are more intimate. Cavendish's provides some welcome comic relief which leaves Frobisher's to really bring the broad thematic concerns of the story as a whole down to an individual level. The movie just doesn't develop Frobisher enough and it wasn't able to endow the conflict between him and the composer Vyvyan Ayrs with an emotional impact. It merely skimmed the surface instead of portraying the Gordian knot that the pair had gotten themselves into.

These complaints are fairly minor in contrast to how the filmmakers changed the ending of the story for their version. The novel ends with Ewing vowing to become an abolitionist. The story has come full circle. It has shown that man's cruelty to man goes far back in time but this denouement also demonstrates that kindness and hope for a better future are just as old as the evils they seek to counter. It's a continuous struggle. On the other hand, the movie finishes with the aged Zachry having shacked up with Meronym and found peace. Black and white together in harmony. This felt like a tacked on happy ending and, frankly, I think it betrayed the rest of the film. It cheapened that which came before. The movie spends nearly three hours meditating on the struggle in each of us to be good to our fellow human beings and how the small triumphs of individuals can add up to an ocean of goodness and then we finish with Zachry and Meronym having found happiness, not by being part of a larger movement of change, but rather by fleeing the Kona – fleeing the struggle.

This is a real shame because I felt the film up to this point was very good on the whole and was a genuine exploration of a very deep and troubling part of our humanity and then it devolves into cheap sentimentality.

The ending aside, Cloud Atlas is a whole lot of food for thought wrapped up in great acting, seamless SFX, and some very clever make-up. Trying to pinpoint which actor is playing whom is really a red herring. While a lengthy film, Tykwer and the Wachowskis did a nice job of keeping the plots on course. Sure, I have my gripes, but the filmmakers deserve credit for having made an artful and, more importantly, a sincere film. The novel wasn't dumbed down in translation nor was it stripped down to a mere skeleton upon which cliched Hollywood sex and violence could be laid.

Fewer Charlatans on State Street

The humorously named forum topic "Psychic Gallery closed, who could have seen this coming?" has the good news. The Psychic Gallery is no more. CCAP shows that Janet Merino and husband Teddy Stevens were sued in small claims court and their business evicted. I have wondered how the joint managed to stay in business with a spot right off The Square that had limited hours and figured they must have been engaged in some nefarious activities.

Apparently Merino has returned to California. She must have left Madison in a hurry as the forum poster writes "The sign on the door says entry is forbidden, the business is considered abandoned, and the contents are being held by the property manager." Since Merino threatened to sue me, I am happy to see her business shuttered and her person out of Madison. Good riddance.

"Death of a Prisoner"

This is heart-wrenching and infuriating at the same time.

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif recently died in solitary confinement at Guantánamo at age 36, after nearly 11 years of imprisonment there, despite never having been charged with a crime. Last month his body was returned to his family in Yemen, but we are left with many unanswered questions about his imprisonment and death.

So we kidnap this guy, throw him in Gitmo until he dies without ever charging him with a crime, and then wait until his body has decomposed significantly before sending his remains back to his family. When I was a kid, this is the kind of stuff the Soviet Union did and Americans pointed this out to differentiate ourselves from them. Now that difference is getting more and more blurry with Gitmo becoming our very own gulag.

Christian Homophobe Douchebag Busted for Making Child Porn

Lisa Biron is a homophobic Christian lawyer who did pro bono work for the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that Right Wing Watch says wants to expose the "homosexual agenda", amongst other stupidities. Well, her agenda was recently exposed and now she's going to jail for producing child pornography.

A Manchester lawyer has been found guilty of exploiting a 14-year-old girl to produce child pornography, The Associated Press reported. Lisa Biron, 43, was accused of videotaping the girl having sex with two men. Biron faced eight federal indictments on charges of child sexual exploitation, transporting a child across state lines to produce child pornography and possession of child pornography, and was convicted on all of them after the jury deliberated for less than an hour.

But wait! It gets worse. The AP reports that the girl in question is Biron's own daughter.

As jurors watched recordings of various sexual encounters, the defendant averted her eyes from the laptop screen in front of her and dropped her head into one hand.

The final video, prosecutors said, depicted the defendant having oral sex with her daughter.

At least someone had a conscience in all of this:

Brandon Ore, of Lebanon, testified he met the mother and daughter after responding to a personals ad placed by “two girls, 18 and 33, looking to party.” He ultimately moved in with them in July 2012, and said it was weeks later that he learned they were mother and daughter, and that the girl was 14.

He moved out two months later and turned himself in to police, triggering the lawyer’s arrest.

I can't imagine the cognitive dissonance in this woman's head from, on one hand working against equal rights for the LGBT community and then turning around and having sex with her own daughter. And she's a Christian to boot. So much for that moral compass that religion is supposed to provide.

Sad Stores from the War on Drugs

Radley Balko has a couple disturbing stories from the front lines of our national disgrace, The War on Drugs. The first of these at least didn't result in anyone's death.

A man says Vernal police disrupted an intimate moment of mourning with his deceased wife of 58 years when they searched his house for her prescription medication without a warrant within minutes of her death.

Barbara Alice Mahaffey died of colon cancer in her bedroom last May. Ben D. Mahaffey, 80, said he was distraught and trying to make sure his wife's body would be taken to the funeral home with dignity, when he says officers insisted he help them look for the drugs.

Barbara Mahaffey died at 12:35 a.m. with Mahaffey, a Navy medic in the Korean War, and his friend, an EMT, at her side. In addition to police, a mortician and a hospice worker arrived at the home about 12:45 a.m., Mahaffey said. He said he doesn't know how police came to be there.

"I was indignant to think you can't even have a private moment. All these people were there and they're not concerned about her or me. They're concerned about the damn drugs. Isn't that something?" Mahaffey said.

Mahaffey said he was treated as if he were going to sell the painkillers, which included OxyContin, oxycodone and morphine, on the street.

Just a few minutes after his wife dies, police walk into his house uninvited assuming all the while that he has been transformed into a drug dealer. Way to serve the public. You can bet your sweet ass that if Mahaffey was a cop, the simple courtesy of not raiding his house for drugs would certainly have been extended to him.

Here's a TV news story about the incident and the resulting lawsuit.



The second incident is much more disturbing and claimed another victim in our War on Drugs.

The victim in this case is Jamie Lynn Russell.

Her death came just hours after she went to the hospital seeking help for severe abdominal pain.

“Jamie was seeking help; she was in extreme pain,” family friend Kemper Kimberlin said.

Hospital staff reported Jamie wouldn’t cooperate, in too much pain to even lie down, so employees asked a Pauls Valley police officer to assist.

Unfortunately, when police found two prescription pills that didn’t belong to Jamie, police took her to jail for drug possession.

That’s where Jamie sat for less than two hours before being found unresponsive.

“There is nothing my staff in the jail could’ve done differently,” Garvin County sheriff Larry Rhodes said.

Sheriff Rhodes points out the hospital staff authorized Jamie’s release to their custody.

“She had a medical release from the hospital stating that she was fit for incarceration,” Rhodes said.

The state medical examiner’s office confirms Jamie died from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, where an embryo implants outside the uterus.

Two pills in pocket cost this woman her life. Confined to a cage in extreme agony to die. Seems like both the police and hospital staff are to blame here. Why would a doctor give the OK to haul a woman off to jail who was in such pain that she couldn't even lie down and why would a police officer want to do so? Why not wait until an obviously serious medical condition is brought under control first? That sheriff sounds like a real douchebag. Your staff could have sought out medical treatment - what the hell is this guy talking about? Too bad the reporter had no interest in challenging all the stupidity on display here. He should have asked the sheriff why a woman in such pain was brought to the jail and left alone. A camera should have been shoved in front of the doctor who allowed the woman to be carted off or, at least, a hospital administrator to answer for such incredibly poor judgment.

A Beer for Winter, A Beer for Summer

Here's a winter brew to keep your eyes peeled for when you're in Chicago.



Go the the brewery's website and look at the stuff. It just radiates tastiness.

When I'm in Chicago during the summer, I look for 5 Lizard but never seem to find it. Where is it hidden? For some reason the northwest side and the western/northwestern suburbs are completely bereft of the stuff. And so I'll try to find this:



This is the latest limited edition Tap X offering from G. Schneider & Sohn. The label says:

A summery sparkling wheat beer specialty with fruity notes. The special new hops aroma leaves a minty feeling on your palate. This hand crafted wheat beer pairs extremely well with light summery dishes, with fish and mild cheeses.

Now, these Tap X brews I can find easily enough in Chicago. (How is it that limited edition beers from Germany are simple to find in ChiTown while a beer brewed there on the south side eludes me?) I've got a bottle of Mein Nelson Sauvin and Mein Cuvée Barrique in my cellar.

I'd also like to stock up on Berliner Weissbiers from Chicago's Pipeworks Brewing for summer. They just came out with a cranberry version.

Doing My Part for the Economy

My old couch was falling apart so it was replaced with this puppy:



Apparently January is the month to buy furniture as the new models ship to stores in February. I took a wee nap on it last night and I can vouch for its high comfort rating. I'll be in the lap of luxury during my Doctor Who marathons.

While I didn't really make any New Year's resolutions, I did vow to rid myself of my cookware with its flaking Teflon. Here's my new Dutch oven with black eyed peas soaking for Hoppin' John.



Now where's a good place to buy anodized aluminum cookware?

Dane County: Wisconsin's Lynching Capital

I found this map made by the Tuskegee Institute showing lynchings in the United States between the years 1900-1931. Oddly enough, there was one in Dane County.



What a dubious distinction. One lynching in the whole state and it was here in Dane County. (Waukesha County didn't go all conservative until later in the century.) I wonder what the story behind it is. Looks like I shall have to investigate.

UPDATE: According to Michael J. Pfeiffer on page 17 of his book Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society 1847-1947 Dane County was framed. He notes, "The lynching displayed in Dane County, Wisconsin, erroneously represents an incident that occurred in Madison, West Virginia, rather than Madison, Wisconsin." This perhaps refers to Frank Brown, murdered on 4 February 1903.

Since When Is Madison Not Desirable for New Construction?

I didn't know it but Madison's reputation as being an undesirable place for new construction goes beyond southern Wisconsin.

I read the following in an article about a couple developers taking on Philadelphia's pugnacious trade unions:

A 2008 report by Econsult found it to be unprofitable to build in most of Philadelphia, ranking it below even Madison, Wisconsin, as a desirable place for new construction.

You wouldn't think Madison has such a lousy reputation from all the new buildings under construction, though. There's construction at Bassett and Johnson, apartments going up near Monona Bay, more going up on the 700 block of East Washington, the Edgewater is being remodeled, and the city is actively pursuing bids to develop the 800 block of East Washington and Union Corners. The UW is always building something. I've only lived here about 22 years yet the Square and its environs have been transformed. Pinkney Street and Doty was developed in the 90s. That high rise at Mifflin and Wisconsin. A convention center. Miffland is getting new apartments. That high rise on King Street and the sardine can on Wilson. Plus that one at the end of South Hamilton. The Red Hotel by Camp Randall. The Old Sauk Business Park and that area on the west side. When I worked there in the late 90s, it was some office buildings, a Denny's, and a McDonalds. Now look at it. Plus the interstate is no longer a border for development. Drive east on Cottage Grove Road and see all the new houses and malls. Take a gander at all the buildings between Madison and Sun Prairie. Reiner Road now has an overpass.

For being so undesirable, there's no shortage of building construction here in Madison nor has there been for at least a couple decades.

John Sayles Q&A

A nice Q&A with director John Sayles from the annual convention of the American Historical Association. I haven't watched the whole thing but it's interesting so far. Sayles studied psychology in college and his movies are psychological investigations, of sorts.

Richard Rowley on Dirty Wars

Director Richard Rowley chats up his movie Dirty Wars in preparation for its screening at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The movie follows journalist Jeremy Scahill around as he investigates our undeclared wars. Expect lots of drones and friendly dictators propped up with our tax money.

Is Madison a Hipster Destination?

The Cap Times' crime blotter notes a fight that broke out at the Plan B nightclub on New Year's Eve. Of the five people mentioned in the story, three of them are from out of town. Indeed, they are all from out of state - Freeport, IL, Belvidere, IL, and South Bend, IN.

In another incident that night, a young woman from Batavia, IL was arrested.

I didn't think that folks from the Chicago area visited Madison that much. Maybe it was just because it was New Year's.

Reading about these incidents I was reminded of a comment at this post up at The Urbanophile. The topic is Milwaukee's place in the Chicago mega-city. One person, whom I presume is from the Chicago area, left this:

Milwaukee is the new cool getaway city for the Chicago hipster kids. Lakefront brewery, the bars and clubs, summer fests are a big attraction. So has become Madison, Wi. It seems every weekend I hear about somebodies trip to Wisconsin for beer, cheese, sausage, farmers markets, fishing, skiing, or just a change of pace from Chicago.

I don't hang out at places that denizens of Wicker Park and Bucktown would likely make a trip for so I haven't noticed this. Have any Madison locals out there experienced a surfeit of Chicago hipsters enjoying our fair burg?

Water, Water Everywhere

Jakarta is sinking.

Some suburbs in the capital already go underwater when there is a big tide but the problem is expected to get even worse.

Jakarta is sinking by up to 10 centimetres a year and Indonesia's national disaster centre says with oceans rising, large parts of the city, including the airport, will be inundated by 2030.

As developers suck up the watertable it dries out and the city slumps into the empty cavity.

"From our observations, since the 1960s the ground water has declined around 30 metres," the head of water resources at Indonesia's energy and mineral resources ministry, Dodid Murdohardono, said.

"The decline of ground water causes pressure in the groundwater lining and that's why Jakarta is sinking."

Meanwhile here in America the fight is on for water. In the wake of last year's drought, the Mississippi River is very shallow.

“We estimate that $7 billion in cargo will stop moving on the Mississippi River if a nine-foot channel cannot be maintained through the winter months,” says Craig Philip, CEO of Ingram Barge Company.

Cutting the flow from dams in South Dakota will reduce water levels in St. Louis by 3 to 4 feet. Realizing that this might effectively kill shipping on the Mississippi over the near term, a group of Midwest politicians including Illinois Senator Dick Durbin are asking President Obama to declare an economic emergency and authorize the Army Corps to reopen the dams.

But upstream states are saying, “not so fast.” South Dakota, for example, is calling dibs on millions of gallons of water for use in the states oil-fracking boom.

Even Senator Durbin admits that asking the President to settle what amounts to a water-war between states is a dicey prospect.

Presumably, if South Dakota doesn't get enough water, then the demand for Wisconsin's fracking-grade sand will decline. If the Mississippi isn't deep enough to allow barge traffic, then goods will have to be moved via train and truck and this will likely increase prices. Uff da!

Karben4 Makes 3

Madison's city limits now contain three breweries (plus Capital being within spitting distance) and several brewpubs. The latest is Karben4 Brewing which moved into Ale Asylum's old digs and had its "soft" opening on Friday. The Dulcinea and I arrived around 6:15 and the place was stuffed to the gills with revelers.

Three beers were on tap: NightCall, a smoked porter; SamuRyePA, a rye APA; and Block Party, an amber ale. We tried the porter and the APA. Would my hesitation stemming from brewmaster Ryan Koga's lacklustre effort at Yellowstone Valley Brewing be proven misplaced? Indeed it would.



The imperial pint glasses were a nice touch.

SamuRyePA was very similar to one of my favorite beers, Founders Red's Rye PA, with an intense citrus/grapefruit hop flavor. An excellent brew and probably a good way to find a niche in the local pale ale scene.

NightCall was tasty as well. The smoke flavor didn't dominate like a Schlenkerla but rather accented the roasted malt flavor. The brew also had a moderate spicy bitterness.

Wisconsin Beer Geek chatted with Koga who revealed that, in addition, to these three beers, an Irish red and a session ale will join the fray as annuals. There will also be four seasonal IPA's, the first of which will be a black IPA/American dark ale. Karben4 seems to be doing its level best to give Ale Asylum a run for its money.

While a bevy of IPAs doesn't particularly interest me, that promised session ale does. Something to look forward to in 2013.

It's Not Just Downtown Film Culture That Ails

Last month James Kreul asked in the pages of Isthmus "Why is downtown Madison film culture disappearing?". I didn't know that Kreul had returned to Madison (has he eschewed the scholarly casual look of blazer & tie for his grey hoodies once again?) so I was delightfully surprised to see the article.

With the Orpheum, Majestic, and University Square 4 out of the cinematic picture, Kreul ponders "Outside of the [Wisconsin Film] festival, does a downtown film culture exist without commercial theaters? And do downtown audiences value alternative film programming like they value the Capitol area's music and arts scenes?" He lauds the UW Cinematheque, the UW's WUD Film, and the Spotlight Cinema series at MMoCA but laments the fact that most of the films they show are here in town for but a single night, with the much-ballyhooed Holy Motors and David Cronenberg's latest Cosmopolis being the highest profile examples.

Before concluding he notes:

I point out the successes and shortcomings of nontheatrical venues to emphasize the vital role they play in Madison's film culture, for the most part against the odds. Another way to read the tea leaves is to conclude that Madison needs subsidized nontheatrical venues to bring in films like Holy Motors because it's not as good of a film town as it thinks it is.

Considering the relative affluence and level of education of Madison's population, you wouldn't think that Kreul's tasseomantic conclusion would hold water but it's the one I subscribe to. If Madison were a good film town, so to speak, we'd have a commercial art house. Instead we have Sundance Cinemas.

Sundance is apparently the fulcrum upon which much of Madison's alternative film programming balances. As the article points out, the Spotlight Cinema programmers get to show films that Sundance doesn't. "Distributors are reluctant to do a one-off screening because they're waiting for a full run at Sundance, which doesn't always happen," says one of them. "It pains me sometimes when a film doesn't get a Sundance run but our calendar is already set, so we can't jump in and get it. I was shocked that we got Take This Waltz [starring Hollywood heavy hitters Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen] because Sundance didn't end up running it." It pains me to hear that so much rides on whether Sundance, a theatre that somehow failed to book Lincoln, shows a film or not.

77 Square's Rob Thomas threw in his two cents about Kreul's piece last week. Thomas seems to have missed much of what he was saying. Kreul talks about a film culture involving challenging cinema, 35mm prints, having filmmakers visit Madison, events such as Yid Vicious doing a live soundtrack for a screening of The Golem, and community. Thomas, on the other hand, ignores most of that and sticks to the idea of whether and individual will be able to see a given movie or not. He's "upbeat" about "non-traditional" trends such as movies never reaching the cinemas and going directly to DVD and watching them via Hulu Plus or iTunes. He and Kreul are ultimately writing about different things.

Another instance which differentiates their views.

Kreul: "Not having weeklong runs can also diminish local press coverage and word-of-mouth promotion."

Thomas: "And, if one of those [smaller, independent] films do [sic] make it to a theater, they don't have the marketing budget to compete with the big boys."

What disappointed me most about Thomas' article was this:

Would it be better for the films to get a weeklong run at Sundance or Point? Maybe better for the distributor.

But for the audience? If only 200 people are going to come out to see “Holy Motors” anyway, isn’t it a better moviegoing experience for all 200 to see it in the same theater on the same night, rather than in audiences of a dozen at a time over the course of a week?

How incredibly asinine. If a movie gets a single screening, not everyone who wants to see it can be there. People have other commitments in life. Things come up. As Kreul wrote, "Technically speaking, Take This Waltz played in Madison, but there are several reasons you probably didn't see it. It was only shown once, and it played the evening of President Obama's first visit to Madison this fall. And that's just one of many misfortunes one-off screenings can have. (I missed Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse at Cinematheque due to a blizzard.)" On what basis does he conclude that Holy Motors has a terminal Madison audience of only a mere 200 people? Going back to Kreul's comment, a week-long run would have generated word of mouth. More tweets, more Facebook posts – surely more than 200 people would have gone to see it.

I think it's fair to ask why Madison is a pretty lousy film town that needs the UW and MMoCA to subsidize alternative fare. Is it the audiences or the programmers? Probably both.

Madison is a small metro area and has an even smaller foreign-born population which means that movies that don't get a certain stamp of approval at a film festival probably won't make it here nor will most foreign pictures who find a base audience in larger cities with populations whose native tongue isn't English.

As I said above, Madison has no commercial art house cinema. Sundance dabbles in that area but it's really just a multiplex for the well-heeled. The promise of a theatre connected to Robert Redford, a major film festival, and a mission statement about bringing "the finest selection of art, independent, foreign and documentary film programming" to Madison was all for naught. It ghettoizes smaller, independent, and foreign films by consigning them to the Screening Room which comes and goes. (As of now the SR has been absent for about two months and, if memory serves, was absent the first quarter of this year.) Instead the majority of movies on offer can be had at any of the other multiplexes in town. Madison has been excluded two years running for the Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. Screens are often given over to broadcasts of opera instead of movies.

Perhaps worst of all, Sundance Madison, given its pedigree, just doesn't seem to be interested in film culture that much. The theatre seems to be more excited about patrons drinking on their rooftop than getting people excited about cinema. I am hoping to see one of my favorite movies of all-time there next week - 2001: A Space Odyssey. While I am glad that it's going to be shown, it's sort of a letdown to know that Sundance didn't do much in the way of curating for Madison audiences - Cinemark did all the work here. Contrast Sundance Madison's Twitter feed with that of Sundance Kabuki. Here in Madison, someone logs in once a week and notes what movies are opening on Friday. In San Francisco, however, there is much more. Sure, there are plenty retweets of gushing praise, but also things like links to trailers and behind the scenes looks at movies that are playing there.

They can tell you months in advance when they will be showing an opera from New York but can't tell you when the Screening Room is to return. Where's 3D and HFR? And how could they not have gotten Lincoln? Sundance specializes in Oscar bait yet couldn't even land a Steven Spielberg movie. Very odd.

As I was pondering all of this, I wondered why Tai Chi Zero, a Chinese martial arts steampunk extravaganza, was never shown in Madison. There was a time when wuxia films were shown here – think Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. What happened? Are commercial theatres now more reluctant to show foreign language films? Madison is home to TeslaCon, a steampunk convention that is growing by leaps and bounds. While not huge by numbers alone, we have 1,600 or so Chinese students at the UW making them the largest group of international students. Why did no one take a chance on Tai Chi Zero? Did Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame fare poorly here?

At the end of the day, I can't say why a particular movie doesn't make it to Madison (where were Branded - it played in Eau Claire for fuck's sake!, Beyond the Black Rainbow, and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?). The Wisconsin Film Festival does well but I have no idea if audiences stay away from more challenging films and foreign movies the rest of the year. Kreul implies this but I don't know the numbers.

As my rant about Sundance indicates, I think that Madison has a film culture problem, not just downtown. Remember when we got an IMAX and the owner of Star Cinemas said, "Our goal is to try to have a Hollywood picture on the screen as much as possible and also have available one of the traditional Imax films"? Where are the traditional IMAX films? While there are some bright spots, Madison's commercial cinemascape is, sadly, very homogenous with its Oscar bait and blockbusters. Documentaries and shorts virtually unknown. Madison screens are also lilywhite with films about and made by people of color being as rare as a nun in a bikini. The UW and Spotlight Cinema don't just subsidize the downtown film culture, they do it for the whole city.

Hopefully at some point Madison cinemas will offer more challenging films and viewers will pick up the gauntlet.

Wisconsin CIO Has a Long Row to Hoe

The state of Wisconsin got a new CIO last month when Gov. Walker appointed David Cagigal as CIO. (He was apparently known as "Diamond Dave" during his tenure at Alliant Energy.) Cagigal has eight "action items". Here's #8:


8. Recruit, Develop and Retain Talent

As the baby boomer generation eventually retires from the workforce, a younger generation will enter, and in turn, will need to understand what the state has learned over the years. Cagigal said that as this happens, it will be crucial to encourage younger workers to enter into government.


I'd love to know how the brain trust at 101 East Wilson plan on recruiting younger (and, hopefully, competent) workers to enter state government when their potential boss at the governor's mansion thinks so poorly of them. "Uncle Scott wants you! Come get paid less than your private sector counterpart and have a boss who thinks you're a 'have' that needs to be taken down a notch or four!"

No Good Will Towards Yemenis for Christmas

Christmas is supposed to be about gluttony and buying lots of stuff but we also like to make overtures about peace on earth and good will towards men. So much for that. Two drone strikes in Yemen killed at least five people on Christmas Eve. They were carried out by forces led by a Christian and Nobel Peace Prize winner named Barack Obama. The dead were "suspected militants".

Whether these people had links to al-Qaeda remains to be seen. But, as Sudarsan Raghavan noted in the Washington Post the same day as these strikes, "When U.S. drones kill civilians, Yemen’s government tries to conceal it".

A rickety Toyota truck packed with 14 people rumbled down a desert road from the town of Radda, which al-Qaeda militants once controlled. Suddenly a missile hurtled from the sky and flipped the vehicle over.

Chaos. Flames. Corpses. Then, a second missile struck.

Within seconds, 11 of the passengers were dead, including a woman and her 7-year-old daughter. A 12-year-old boy also perished that day, and another man later died from his wounds.

The Yemeni government initially said that those killed were al-Qaeda militants and that its Soviet-era jets had carried out the Sept. 2 attack. But tribal leaders and Yemeni officials would later say that it was an American assault and that all the victims were civilians who lived in a village near Radda, in central Yemen. U.S. officials last week acknowledged for the first time that it was an American strike.

“Their bodies were burning,” recalled Sultan Ahmed Mohammed, 27, who was riding on the hood of the truck and flew headfirst into a sandy expanse. “How could this happen? None of us were al-Qaeda.”

More than three months later, the incident offers a window into the Yemeni government’s efforts to conceal Washington’s mistakes and the unintended consequences of civilian deaths in American air assaults. In this case, the deaths have bolstered the popularity of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist network’s Yemen affiliate, which has tried to stage attacks on U.S. soil several times.

Read that again: "the deaths have bolstered the popularity of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula".

Here's a picture from the scene of the crime.



Fortunately I can't discern the four severed heads that rescuers found when they arrived at that hellish scene.

It comes from an article by Letta Tayler at Foreign Policy called "Anatomy of an Air Attack Gone Wrong". In it she describes the devastation wrought by the murders.

The deaths from the September attack have devastated Sabool, a cluster of 120 brick-and-mud homes that residents say has no electricity, no paved roads, no schools, no hospitals, and no jobs apart from khat farming.

"Seven of the victims were breadwinners. Now we have 50 people in our village with no one to care for them," said Awadh, the local sheikh. "Who will raise them? Who will educate them? Who will take care of their needs?"

Sabooli, the farmer whose parents and only sister were killed, said six of his 10 remaining siblings are still too young to fend for themselves. "When I enter our house, my younger brothers still ask, 'Where are my mother, my father, and my sister?'" he said.

About 100 years ago during World War I there was the Christmas truce where soldiers stopped fighting and instead sang carols and exchanged food. Today soldiers go into the office on Christmas Eve, kill some people using a joystick while watching video displays, and then head home to celebrate the holidays. Things have certainly changed.

New Beers, New Brewery, and a Letter to the Woodman Brewery

Some new labels:

First is the next entry in Capital's new bomber series, Jacked Maibock. I presume this is just going to be a doppelbock of some sort. Good to see a goat return to the label, although mega-maxi-hyper-masculine-testosterone-fueled beer labels are getting old.



Sprecher is moving into the flavored malt beverage arena. Their root beer is well-known so a hard root beer is probably a good way to capitalize on its popularity.



Leine's is going to milk the Kool-Aid beer cow for all it's worth. I had their Lemon Berry Shandy last year at the Potosi Brew Fest and it was disgusting. Stick with Stiegl's radlers. The grapefruit version is fantastic.



I hear that Green Flash Brewing is now distributing here in Wisconsin. I haven't seen it but, then again, I haven't been looking. Can anyone confirm if it's on store shelves here in Madison?

Karben4's soft opening is tomorrow. According to a Facebook post, they will have three brews on tap:

NightCall (smoked porter)
SamuRyePA (rye based american pale ale)
Block Party (amber ale)

I am keeping an open mind despite Ryan Koga's Huckle-Weizen being a pretty lousy brew.

I tried Sam Adams' Norse Legend sahti last weekend and it was really tasty. Get it while you can. And don't forget that Scott Manning's take on the style is now on tap at the Vintage.

And there's this King Crimson-inspired label. Progressive rock and beer – two of the best things in life.



Lastly, I want to ask the folks at the Woodman Brewery to investigate quality control. Last week I poured four of your beers down the drain - four different brews. They all smelled wonderful. I loved the aroma of the Popcorn Lager, for instance, but it was terrible. The Halloween Ale tasted like clove water while the Red Oak Ale was little more than tap water with a dash of oak flavoring. I prefer not to drink rafters, thank you. Your Octoberfest was watery as was the bock I had. I really liked your Red Porter when I had it but that's been one of the few beers of yours that wasn't watery or didn't have off flavors making it taste like sheet metal or plastic. Your ales are hit or miss but I haven't had a lager of yours that didn't get a sip and then discreetly deposited into the drain.

If your beer tastes like Minhas brewed it, then it's your fault. However, if it tastes like a building material, then perhaps it's not being refrigerated properly in the time it leaves your brewery and before it ends up in a cooler at the retail end. Either way, you have a brace of serious quality control issues.

A Concerned Drinker

Some Awe-Inspiring Astronomy Images

The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, posted his favorite astronomy images of 2012 and they are awesome. They're like a mini-Total Perspective Vortex that show just how puny we humans really are. Take, for instance, this burst of plasma which is big, really big.



On Aug. 31, 2012, the Sun had a major hissy fit: A vast arch of material was lifted up off the surface by the Sun’s powerful magnetic field. Sometimes these arches collapse back down, but this one erupted, blasting literally hundreds of millions of tons of superheated plasma into space at a speed of 1,400 kilometers per second (900 miles per second)—over a thousand times faster than a rifle bullet. The scale of this is crushing—the arch was 300,000 kilometers (200,000) miles) across, 25 times larger than the Earth. As we near the peak of the Sun’s magnetic cycle, we’ll be seeing even more activity like this in the coming months.

Cargo Trailer

I borrowed this DVD. Looks like some good Teutonic sci-fi.

Geese With Bombs in Their Butts?

Terry McDermott, co-author of The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed recently had a piece in the LA Times about the whole controversy surrounding the use of torture in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (I always heard the antelucan hours referred to as "zero dark early".) called "'Zero Dark Thirty': Why the fabrication?".

The argument about the role of torture in the film aside, I found the following to be well, horrifying. After we tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

The result? KSM, as he is known within the intelligence community, revealed nothing about the most valuable thing he knew — Bin Laden's whereabouts. He did not, for example, divulge the name of the Kuwaiti courier who served Bin Laden.

This is not coincidentally the piece of information that sets "Zero Dark Thirty" in motion. Mohammed had trained the courier and knew of his connection to Bin Laden. Instead, he sent agents on hundreds of futile chases, hindering the hunt for Bin Laden rather than aiding it.

The simple fact is you can't reliably separate the gold from the dross that torture yields. "He had us chasing the goddamn geese in Central Park because he said some of them had explosives stuffed up their ass," one FBI counter-terrorism agent said in frustration.

Is this serious? It's bad enough that my tax money was used to torture someone and it's even worse to think that we paid people to examine geese assholes because someone thought that such a claim borne out of torture was legitimate.

But wait - it gets worse. The article ends on a disturbingly Kafka-esque note.

We have so contorted ourselves that earlier this month a military judge ruled that the man whose real-life torture is described in the movie, Mohammed's nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, will not be allowed to describe his torture at trial. The methods used to extract information from captives is a state secret, the judge said, as are the victim's recollections of it.

Apparently, those methods can be celebrated in a movie but not acknowledged in a court of law.

If this kind of stuff keeps up, it won't be long before these things start happening to Americans generally.

Preview of Remembering Chicago: The '70s & '80s

I have no recollection of the day Richard Daley died but I do remember Disco Demolition Night. This would make a nice New Year's gift for me.

Bahrain Activist Has Some Harsh Words for the U.S.

Zainab al-Khawaha is an activist for democracy in Bahrain. Yesterday the NYT published an op-ed from her pen in which she pointed out American hypocrisy - democracy is good for some people, just not for where we park the Fifth Fleet.

Bahrain, a small island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia, has been ruled by the Khalifa family for more than 200 years. It is also home to the headquarters of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which patrols regional shipping lanes, assists with missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and monitors Iran as tensions in the region mount.

The oppressed people of Bahrain joined the Arab Spring soon after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. With newfound hope, Bahrainis took to the streets on Feb. 14, 2011. Rich and poor, Shiite and Sunni, liberal and religious, they felt what it was like to speak freely for the first time in the capital, Manama, at a traffic circle with a pearl monument at its center. The Pearl Roundabout came to symbolize the Bahraini revolution.

But this newfound freedom didn’t last long. The government’s security forces attacked the peaceful protesters, then tore down the Pearl monument. And in March 2011, troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened to suppress our pro-democracy protests.

...

The United States speaks about supporting human rights and democracy, but while the Saudis send troops to aid the Khalifa government, America is sending arms. The United States is doing itself a huge disservice by displaying such an obvious double standard toward human rights violations in the Middle East. Washington condemns the violence of the Syrian government but turns a blind eye to blatant human rights abuses committed by its ally Bahrain.

This double standard is costing America its credibility across the region; and the message being understood is that if you are an ally of America, then you can get away with abusing human rights.

Limbaugh Makes a Good Point

Over the years Rush Limbaugh has proven himself to be a grade A douchebag. However, he did make a good point recently concerning calls for gun control in the wake of the Newtown massacre:

On his syndicated radio show this afternoon, Rush Limbaugh went after the “anti-gun media” for, in his belief, not caring about gun violence when it affects urban neighborhoods like Chicago and Oakland.

“You guys ever been to Chicago? Do you know what happens in Chicago every night?” Limbaugh rhetorically asked the pro-gun politicians like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) who’ve now become pro-gun control in the wake of last week’s massacre. “What happens in Chicago in a week dwarfs what happened in Connecticut. Just nobody’s reporting it. There’s no cameras up there. You don’t see it. All you see is the mayor warning the gangbangers to kill each other instead of other people. That’s all you ever see.”

Limbaugh continued: “Have you ever heard any politician go on an anti-gun rant when you’ve heard about urban violence? Does it ever happen? I’m asking. Those stories out of Chicago were happening daily. Drudge was highlighting them. But take your pick. The Rodney King incident, whatever, the Watts riots, pick one. Post-Katrina looting in New Orleans, was the anti-gun control out in force there? They never are, are they? I wonder why that is? Why is it the anti-gun people never use violence in urban neighborhoods as an example of why we have to get rid of guns?” he asked.

Chicago has had 450+ deaths from gun violence this year and, while Chicagoans know all too well about the shootings in their city, seemingly very little is said about the epidemic outside of it. It doesn't generate national headlines and CNN doesn't report 24/7 on it like the Newtown massacre. The NRA doesn't fall silent when black youth are cut down on Chicago's south and west sides. "Pro-gun" politicians don't suddenly find themselves willing to enact gun control legislation.

Why is this?

Does skin color matter? Do people extend empathy for children in relatively well-off communities easier than those in poor communities? Perhaps it's simply the magnitude of the Newtown massacre and the rarity of such events in contrast to the frequency of shootings in Chicago where one or two children are killed at a time. Still, those numbers in the Windy city add up.

Obama Is and Has Been Intent on Cutting Social Security

Firedoglake makes the case.

Everywhere you look, the media narrative is that President Obama is “capitulating” to Republicans by agreeing to cuts in Social Security benefits.

And I have to ask, where is this collective political amnesia coming from?

Obama has made a deliberate and concerted effort to cut Social Security benefits since the time he took office. FDL reported on February 12, 2009 that the White House was meeting behind closed doors to consider ways to cut Social Security benefits, and that the framework they were using was the Diamond-Orszag plan, which was co-authored by OMB Director Peter Orszag when he was at the Brookings Institute.

...

The President has been very forthcoming about the fact that cutting Social Security benefits is something he wants to do. When he said during the debate that he didn’t differ from Mitt Romney on entitlement reform, he meant it. It’s time for people to remove the rose-colored glasses and stop projecting their own feelings on to the man. It’s time to take him at his word.

People who collect Social Security can at least take heart that Obama is better than Romney, right?

Pakistani Kids Express Sympathy for Newtown Tragedy

(Found here.)

Sorry kids. While we appreciate your sympathy, most of us are indifferent to your plight. Sadly, when you're killed by a missile, few Americans bat an eye.

Pope Blesses Disgusting, Homophobic Ugandan Politico

That's Pope Fritzy bestowing his blessings upon Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of Uganda's parliament. Kadaga is infamous for her push to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill which, among other things, allows the death penalty for those who commit "aggravated homosexuality", whatever the hell that means.

Passage of the bill would be "a Christmas gift" for some Christians:

Some Christian clerics at the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, asked the speaker to pass the law as "a Christmas gift."

"Kill the fags" - quite a stocking stuffer. So much for goodwill towards men.

"so where was your god today?"

Becher vs. Stange

What's the plural of becher? Becheren? I don't know but I do know that I now have couple of them.

Last month local beer scribe Robin Shepard reviewed Port Huron's altbier and wrote that the style is traditionally served in a stange. I noted that altbier traditionally comes in a becher. (Though that appears to be changing.) The becher is similar to a stange in that it's cylindrical but the venerable serving vessel from Düsseldorf is shorter and stouter than its cousin from Köln. To wit:



That's a becher on the left and a stange next to it. Yes, I know they both need a good wash.

Your Kölsch goes in a stange:





While your altbier goes in a becher:



Now I need to celebrate my new glassware with an altbier tasting. Who makes alts around here? Port Huron, Tyranena, Rush River (a sticke in the summer?!), and BluCreek. Scott at Vintage brews Rhine Heights Alt but I don't think it's on tap currently. Any others?

Need beer? There's an app for that.

Finally, an iPad put to good use.

Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. Bypasses Madison Again

Bummer. The Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. will once again avoid Madison. The festival is a Sundance Institute event in which various filmmakers ship their films fresh from the Sundance Festival in Utah to a theatre and then jump on a plane for a special screening.

At least we are not alone as Sundance Cinemas in Seattle was also left out of the loop.

This disappointment follows the theatre putting their Screening Room - a selection of smaller, often foreign, films - on hiatus.

With all these well educated and well heeled Epic employees moving to downtown Madison, perhaps the time is right for a commercial art house cinema.

Special Delivery from St. Louis

My friend Charles was recently in St. Louis and so he made a stop at what he considers to be the best BBQ in the known universe - Pappy's Smokehouse. Luckily he thought of your humble narrator and braved the snow to bring some pork goodness for me.

"We have socialism for the rich and the incompetent"

A video from Econ4, a group of reform-minded economists.

Buddhist Scholar Calls Grover Norquist Tax Pledge A "seditious oath, a treasonous oath"

Professor Robert Thurman has posted a video on YouTube in which he explicitly says that he's trying to start a meme. He wants to get people to reject the Grover Norquist pledge to not raise taxes and the politicians who take it. He says that politicos who sign the pledge are essentially pledging to pursue a goal that runs contrary to their oath of office.

His argument is that pledging to not raise taxes in a bid to shrink the government so it can be drowned in a bathtub contradicts the oath of office.

New Beer Labels & Capital Tries to Play Catch Up

The Wee on the Lam Sour Brown has an interesting tale. It was a bad batch of wee heavy that was redeemed with some brett. It'll be interesting to taste how this came out.

And from a bit further afield:



While Sam Adams is not a Wisconsin brewer, this beer just sounds blatantly interesting. I bet it would go well with a movie. I shall have to bust out my Rashomon DVD with a bottle in hand.


This curious and cunning brew, named for the eight-headed dragon of Japanese lore, use two unusual ingredients from the same origin for its distinctive and bold flavor. Yuzu juice creates a bright citrusy character with notes of grapefruit & mandarin orange while Japanese Sugi wood balances the sweetness with a fresh earthiness. The result is a bright & ethereal yet with lots of earthy power.


In Business Madison has a new beer blog.

Barry Adams of the Wisconsin State Journal recently interviewed Brian Destree from Capital.

In March, an imperial IPA will be released in 22-ounce bomber bottles and on draft, followed by a toned-down IPA in April available in bottles, cans and on tap.

"...we're trying to get back to the younger demographic and give them something that's hot right now. IPAs are just flying off the shelf right now."


Yay. Bandwagon jumping. This is disappointing although understandable from a business point of view - Capital wants to catch the IPA wave. But I have to wonder if jumping on the bandwagon is going to pay off. Why not differentiate yourself instead of following the pack? Hopheads have Moon Man, Ale Asylum, Two Hearted, Sierra Nevada, and, well, pretty much every craft brewery out there. Even Michelob brewed an IPA.

I don't doubt that Destree will brew a tasty IPA and IIPA; instead I simply have a natural knee-jerk aversion to following the pack. I'd much rather Capital did something different than try to play catch up. At the very least, brew an IPL. Coney Island does some interesting lagers. How about a Kölsch? A good Kölsch is hard to beat and it needn't be dull. Capital could differentiate theirs from most American Kölsch-style ales out there by simply lagering it as is proper. Or they could go further. Finch's brewed one with toasted hops and applewood while Flat 12 brewed a version with cucumber which I had at The Great Taste and enjoyed. A normal Kölsch as an annual and then a funky one for the Capital Square series.

Alternatively, why not play around with a weizen? Try adding fruit to one or get hopheads jizzing in their pants by using some kind of C-hop.

We'll just have to wait and see but I worry that all of this talk of IPAs, catering to young people, and bandwagon jumping means that the brewery will forget to dance with the one that brung ya.

MadTable has an article about Capital's bomber series which reveals more bandwagon jumper oning:

“We wanted to take advantage of a trend,” says Capital’s vice president of sales, Corey Wheling. “22-ounce bottles are the number one package for consumer beer trials for beers people have never had before.”

This makes a nice segue to a bit of confirmation bias. This is an episode of the Seacoast Beverage Lab Podcast featuring Chris Lohring of Notch Brewing, a brewery that brews only session beers, i.e. - brew of 4.5% ABV or less. He covers his love of sessions beers, his dislike of seasonal beers being released a full season before the one they're brewed for, he questions the need for another IPA, and notes how bombers are a rip-off for consumers. Good stuff.

Trailer for Breaking the Taboo, a Documentary About the Disaster That Is Our War on Drugs

I found this at Boing Boing. It's a trailer for a movie called Breaking the Taboo which looks at our War on Drugs. The poster at BB pointed out the line, "If you can’t control drug use in a maximum security prison how could you control drugs in a free society?" I'd also throw in that Bill Clinton chimes in against the war, at least a part of it. What gets in my craw is, what was he doing when he was president? I guess he changed his mind. We need someone who will stop the war when he or she is president, not after they leave office and have nothing to lose by speaking out.

NSA Whistleblower: Privacy is Dead

A disturbing interview with NSA whistleblower William Binney. He is the former head of the NSA's global digital data gathering program and tells a harrowing story of how the U.S. government monitors and copies vast amounts of electronic data. If you get on their enemies list, you're fucked. For anyone who had placed hope in Obama, Binney says that this kind of spying has gotten worse under our Dear Leader than it was under Bush II. You may think that you're safe because you're not doing anything wrong, but, as Binney notes, "The problem is, if they think they’re not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does."

When I was a kid, we Americans prided ourselves on not doing this kind of thing. This was what the Soviets did. Yet now no one really cares and we accept it that the government can and does make copies of all of our chats, e-mails, &c. Even a four star general and the Director of the CIA had their e-mail infiltrated.

First Use of OMG TLA?

It is being claimed that the first use of "OMG" has been discovered in a letter from one Lord Fisher to Winston Churchill that was written in 1917. The decline of English has been going on much longer than had previously been suspected.

Movember Yields to Decembeaver

A cause that I can get behind.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell To Be Adapted for Television

Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is being adapted for TV.

BBC One has announced it's to make a six-part adaptation of the magnificent Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, directed by Doctor Who & Sherlock alumni Toby Haynes.

Rumoured as a film adaptation for years, the sheer scale of the novel and number of effects needed may be somewhat daunting, but Toby Haynes has a strong track record at succeeding with ambitious material, having been responsible for Doctor Who's The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang two-parter, and the Sherlock series two finale The Reichenbach Fall. Adapting Clarke's book will be writer Peter Harness, who penned the third series of Wallander.

I shall have to read the book next year.

Now, where is that TV adaptation of The Man in the High Castle?

Wisconsin Manufacturing and Ag Open for Business*

* (If you mean that they are the recipients of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks.)

The Wisconsin Rapids Tribune reports that $100 million in business tax credits will be realized soon thanks to the Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature.

Wisconsin manufacturers and farmers are poised to cash in on the biggest state tax break they’ve received in decades, a move hailed by business groups but questioned by others worried about the annual tax revenue loss of more than $100 million.

The Republican-controlled Legislature included the “domestic production tax credit” in the 2011-13 state budget. It applies to production in Wisconsin and on Wisconsin property that’s assessed for manufacturing or agricultural use. Over the next four years, income taxes on these sectors will be reduced to nearly nothing.

Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a nonpartisan research group, said Wisconsin is one of the top manufacturing states in the country and it makes sense to assist the sector economically, given its importance and the stress it has been under.

“The harder question is whether it makes sense for state government to essentially play favorites,” Berry said. “Is there some reason we should favor a widget manufacturer over a software developer?”

Berry also faulted the Legislature for failing to specify how the tax cut would be funded, either with more revenue or less spending.

Berry's comment about it making sense to assist the manufacturing sector in Wisconsin made me chuckle because, over the weekend, the NYT published an article about tax "incentives", i.e. – bribes, that local government dole out to businesses called "As Companies Seek Tax Deals, Governments Pay High Price". It is well worth reading but it was the article's interactive sidebar that really caught my attention. If you look at the Wisconsin data, you'll see that we spend "at least $1.53 billion per year on incentive programs". That's $0.10 per dollar of our entire state budget. When that figure is broken down by industry, the top recipients of bribes that involve taxpayer money are, you guessed it, agriculture with $302 million and manufacturing with $572 million worth of "incentives". And now these top 2 recipients of tax breaks are poised for another $100 million or so over the course of a few years.

Both articles note that it's not clear if these tax breaks have the desired effect that legislators intend when passing the laws.

Still, Jon Peacock, director of the Wisconsin Budget Project, a Madison-based tax and budget policy research organization, said one of the problems with the tax cut is it’s not directly tied to job creation.

“We have no assurance that any of the businesses that get this tax break aren’t just going to pocket the money or use it for higher dividends for their stockholders,” Peacock said.

And from the NYT's piece:

The cost of the awards is certainly far higher. A full accounting, The Times discovered, is not possible because the incentives are granted by thousands of government agencies and officials, and many do not know the value of all their awards. Nor do they know if the money was worth it because they rarely track how many jobs are created. Even where officials do track incentives, they acknowledge that it is impossible to know whether the jobs would have been created without the aid.

“How can you even talk about rationalizing what you’re doing when you don’t even know what you’re doing?” said Timothy J. Bartik, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich.

All of this makes me shudder to think what these industries would be like in this state if they actually had to compete in a "free market".