Katie Über Alles

Remembering Vietnam: The Wall at 25

When I lived downtown, I used to frequently visit museums, memorials, and parks.  Jogging or walking to a lot of these places, with my trustee walkman (this was in the days before ipods) was my thinking time.  One of my favorite places to go on these jaunts was to the Vietnam Wall, not just because it was a straight shot down 23rd street, but because it was so moving to see other people in their experience interacting with the wall, and a moving monument in its own right.  My favorite time of the day has always been dawn and that was definitely my favorite time to jog down to the wall...POW/MIA vendors just setting up their stalls, but mostly empty, peaceful, and quiet.

I was reminded of one of my favorite thinking spots again tonight while I watched this show on the Wall on the Smithsonian channel (one of my favorite tv channels these days).  I knew most of the stuff on the show, but it was well done, and worth checking out if you get a chance.

Recount

I got rid of HBO when Sex and the City went off the air.  But since HBO has come out with things like John Adams and Recount, I'm glad I subscribed again.

Recount is a great movie (how can you not love Kevin Spacey?).  It will be on tonight at 9pm and is also  ONDemand - where I just watched it.  Brings back lots of memories of that crazy time.  I still remember sitting dejectedly on the bench outside of Monroe Hall after watching the returns in the Marvin Center with Ben saying: "You guys had your 8 years...it's our turn now..."  Good times (or not, LOL). 

John Adams

Last night around 3:30am, I had been working on my paper for several hours and my brain was starting to hurt.  One might think that the statistical analysis of a paper would take the longest out of all other sections, but in fact because I am using a dataset I am already very familiar with, plugging some data into STATA, running some models, and interpreting the results took very little time.  Instead what I have been struggling with is writing the front end of the paper: the justification for why this is an important problem, the theory behind my models, and weaving together the rather disjointed literature on religion and attitudes on foreign policy (I'm looking at evangelicals' attitudes towards Iraq in the 2006 elections).

At any rate, around 3:30, I was sorely in need of a break.  I couldn't find anything interesting on TV or On Demand.  But after spending the previous part of the day reviewing with my students' for their 170 final (large parts of which focus on the federalist papers, federalism, and the design of the Constitution), I was tempted to subscribe to HBO and finally watch the John Adams miniseries that I have heard so many good things about.  So I did.

I've only watched the first two episodes (after all I still have papers to write!) but they are really good.  I feel like I am the last person on earth to watch this miniseries, but if in fact you have not watched it yet, you may want to.  Not entirely certain how I feel about Paul Giamatti in this role (I really like him as an actor, but I have trouble not looking at him as Paul Giamatti).  Laura Linney, otoh, is perfect as one of my personal heroes, Abigail Adams. 

Centennial

Once a long time ago (actually, this summer will be exactly 20 years), we spent a summer, as always, on my grandparents' boat.  We ended up taking a week or so off the boat to spend time on the Queen Charlotte Islands, where my sister and I got to ride Haflingers every day on a ranch.

Later we ended up heading home only to be recalled by the Canadian Coast Guard due to a large storm.  My grandpa told them that he'd rather take his chances on the open sea since having his boat at the marina would potentially mean damage to the boat from banging against the dock.  So we rode out a storm with gale force winds on the open ocean in my grandparents' 40 foot sailboat.  To date, that is the only time in my life I have been seasick (though I have been in other storms on the ocean).

Anyways, my mom and my sister and I were in the forward V berth, rolling around from the storm.  If you have never been seasick, I promise you there is no worse feeling in the world.  It is significantly worse than being normally sick.  You want to die.  In order to try to make us all feel better, my Mom started to tell us the story of a bock she had been reading during the trip: Centennial, by James Michener, a lengthy work of historical fiction about the history of Colorado.  Thus started my life-long obsession with historical fiction and Michener; Centennial is still one of my favorite books.

A mini-series was made of the stories and it is traditional for us to watch it over Thanksgiving or Christmas and several inside family jokes originate from this mini-series.  Just got an email from my mom that it is finally on DVD (I have it on VHS).  Watch it if you like historical fiction - it's one of the best historical sagas out there. 

Some political humour

Hat tip to Melissa.

SNL 2008 Fringe Candidates Debate | Funny Jokes at JibJab

I Bet You

I just downloaded the first season of "I Bet You" on iTunes, a tv show starring pro poker players Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak.  I heard about this show awhile ago, but it's on a station I don't get.  Basically they walk around making prop bets on things.  Anyways, I was pretty excited to find it on iTunes.  I think I'm going to get a season pass for Season 2 which just started.

I've watched the first few episodes and so far it's actually a really funny show.  Definite recommend, especially to anyone who is a degenerate.  Download season 1 episodes from iTunes here.  You can download one episode from each season for free.

What the...?

So I'm sitting here writing a paper and I have the TV on.  All of a sudden, a commercial for theladders.com grabbed my attention.  Their tag line is: "100k jobs for 100k people."

100k people????

I guess this kind of elitist ego-stroking attracts their target audience, which is a good thing from a marketing perspective.  However, the attitude, which seems to be pervasive in American culture, that people's worth to society is based on how much money they make drives me up a wall.  I know lots of people who feel this way and for the life of me I cannot understand it.

The argument typically goes something like: "The free market determines salaries.  People will get paid in accordance with how much they are worth on the market.  If society really values the work someone does, they will get paid more."

So does our society really value ambulance-chasing lawyers, airline pilots, and plastic surgeons over teachers, civil servants, and other important, but lesser paying jobs?  Perhaps so, but really societal values don't have all that much to do with it, in my opinion.  Jobs that pay more pay more because they require specialized skills.  There are fewer people able to do those jobs due to the specialized training they require.  Additionally, a lot of high paying jobs demand abnormal schedules, additional workload, or being on call and an increase in salary is one way to make sure that people stay in those jobs.

Anyways, that's my rant of the day.  The amount of money you make has little to do with how awesome of a person you are, or how valuable you are to society.  /rant.

*And yes, my opinions on this probably have to do with the fact that I am the daughter of two people who do things that I consider socially valuable that do not make a lot of money, relatively speaking...and that I want to do the same thing "when I grow up."

Labels mean nothing

So I noticed the other day that Rounders was on Encore Mystery.  Now Rainman is on Encore Westerns.

Oh My - Middle Eastern Simpsons

Best Week Ever had a very disturbing post earlier this week.

"The Simpsons are going to the Middle East! Except their names will be the Shamshoons:

The Simpsons fans in the Middle East reacted with skepticism when MBC, an Arabic satellite channel, announced it would begin showing culturally modified, Arabic-dubbed versions of the iconic animated show. The Arabic dialogue laid over existing shows is actually fairly faithful to the original script. Nothing seems censored, but episodes such as those featuring Homer's gay roommate or the visit to the Duff brewery are unlikely to be chosen for translation. And many of the more American inside jokes are simply glossed over.

Ned Flanders, the devout Christian neighbor, is now merely annoying -- with no hint of religion. And needless to say, the relationship between Mr. Burns and his assistant, Smithers -- make that Salmawy -- has become strictly professional.

Some other changes:

Bald, chubby underachiever Omar Shamshoon works each day at the local nuclear power plant owned by vulture-like millionaire Mahrooey Bey. Every evening, Omar comes home to a family that includes his blue-haired wife, Mona, hyper-smart daughter, Beesa, and troublemaking son, Badr.

Now that’s winning hearts and minds."

Link from Best Week Ever

Who thought this was a good idea????