I didn’t make the “2 hours before departure” window, but I also didn’t miss it by much. Sure, I was a tiny bit concerned about the timing (especially after I read in the Times that Des Moines was one of the airports experiencing large delays in security screenings) but all those fears were soothed when the fine folks at ATA gave me my boarding passes with a smile — newly switched to exit rows, bless ’em.

After saying goodbye to my loving mother, father, sister, and grandmother, I jumped on the escalator to ascend into what I guessed would be TSA hell. Except it was far from it: I was checked through security so fast, the longest delay was getting my shoes back on. Things were going swimmingly.

Of course that left me plenty of time to wait in the terminal, listening to 4 yuppie-wannabes (one of whom had a copy of O’Reilly’s No Spin Zone, natch) going on and on about the cruise they were going to take from Ft. Lauderdale.

I escaped the banal banter long enough to chat up a United Express gate agent, who agreed the “International” in “Des Moines International Aiport” is a joke.

“Sure it’s international,” she said. “If you mean Canada by way of Detroit.”

A journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step. (And then a car ride. And then some flights…)

I’ll be back online in a few days, when the dust settles.

Attorney General John Ashcroft is compiling a new watch list, but this one doesn’t name terrorists. It’s for judges who don’t follow federal sentencing minimums.

An Ashcroft memo, as reported by the AP, directs prosecutors to report back to the mothership whenever a judge makes “a ‘downward departure’ from guidelines.”

At first blush, this seems to make some sense: shouldn’t federal crimes be sentenced consistently? As spokesman Mark Corallo puts it: “It is an effort to make sure that someone who is convicted of a crime in California is treated no differently than a person who is convicted of the exact same crime in Massachusetts.”

Why then is no less a legal luminary than Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist writing to the Senate Judiciary Committee that reporting actions “would seriously impair the ability of courts to impose just and reasonable sentences”?

The answer is that legislators are not judges. The judge hears the evidence, sees the circumstances, and makes a decision from far more information than just a Congress-created table listing crimes and punishments. (Even the creators of the “table,” the U.S. Sentencing Commission, opposed the legislation that Ashcroft is now implementing.)

Just another reason to vote ABBA*.

—
* Anyone But Bush Again.

Though I first read it several days ago, I still can’t believe it:

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,000 adults found that 19 percent of respondents strongly agreed that the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. That number was down sharply from the 41 percent found on last year’s survey, conducted nine months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. [emphasis added]
— Survey: Support for First Amendment Up, Associated Press

The fact that last year, fully two in five Americans surveyed strongly agreed the First Amendment goes too far blows my fucking mind. I fervently hope that there is some massive flaw in the survey’s methodology, and that these statistics are not representative of the general public. But oh, how I fear that they may be.

Just for reference, ladies and gentlemen, let’s review the full text of the amendment in question:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That beautiful opener of the Bill of Rights goes too far? What is wrong with those people?

There’s just over 15 hours until I have my move-out inspection here at the apartment, a fact that’s readily apparent to those who have dropped by for a visit. (Though my friends know I strive for a minimalist approach, current accomodations are that and more — err, less.)

As the absence of furniture and the early departure date (a full 9 days before my lease actually expires) demonstrate, I’m quite ready to hand in the keys and get a move on. Ames has served as a backdrop for some fun times in my life, but really never more than that. As the people who mean much to me have moved on to new opportunities (or just new places), it’s time for me to head out as well — a fact I tacitly acknowledged for most of ’03, as consulting opportunities had me paying rent on a place that I didn’t enter for many weeks at a stretch.

Now for the next opportunity.

Snapped this picture of a Jetta’s bumper sticker.

(Car was in the Minneapolis REI parking lot.)

I know, no updates in the past few days. And there will probably be none for a few more; I’m on the Farewell Tour. More (including moments on Swimming Pool and Capturing the Friedmans) when the dust settles.

Until then, have good times.

Coming soon: the film that brought “Ben & Jen” together. The early buzz: it sucks. Hard.

What a surprise.

Seems that Affleck doesn’t cut it as hitman, and Lopez isn’t convincing as — wait for it — a hardass lesbian mob enforcer. Yet the writers should also get their fair share of the blame, gossips say:

But the major complaint is the lack of onscreen chemistry between the two off-screen squeezes, part of which is being blamed on suck-o dialogue. In one laughably unsteamy scene, Lopez lies on a bed with her legs spread and announces “It’s turkey time!” “What?” asks Affleck. She replies with what one critic has called “possibly the worst line ever said in a movie”: “Come on, gobble, gobble.”

No wonder some wacky IMDb poster labeled it “EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Satan.”

Buy.com put the iTunes Music Service in its sights this week with the launch of BuyMusic.com. TV commercials for the new Windows-only service blatantly copy the iTunes ads, and BuyMusic.com uses a “music for the rest of us” slogan, flaunting its more popular platform (Windows), broader selection (advertising their ~300,000 songs as “The World’s Largest Download Music Store”), and lower price (79¢/track.)

Naturally, they leave out the attached strings: sure, some songs are 79¢ apiece, but not all. Similarly, the rights that you buy with a track vary depending on the respective record company’s whims. Oh, and did I say buy? Perish the thought, as Ars helpfully notes in a BuyMusic license excerpt:

All downloaded Content is sublicensed to End Users and not sold, notwithstanding use of the terms “sell,” “purchase,” “order,” or “buy” on the Site or this Agreement.

I guess SubLicenseMusic.com wasn’t catchy enough.

UPDATE: You can download the Audioslave album from BuyMusic for $12.49. You’re then allowed to burn it at most 5 times and/or transfer it to portable players at most 5 times. Why is this better than spending 99¢ more to get the actual CD from plain ol’ Buy.com? You got me.

“There was no gladness when I was born,” says Whale Rider‘s main character, young Pai. She’s right — her mother and twin brother died during childbirth, and this means that a long line of Maori chiefs made up of first-born males may end with her. As she tries to determine her birthright, Pai faces opposition, not least from her grandfather, who feels affection towards her yet traces all of the community’s hardship to the day she was born.

The film’s upbeat, inspiring message uses its New Zealand setting to lush effect, with expansive ocean views in nearly every scene. Yet the foreground is far from movie perfect, as the houses tend to be run down and the interiors stuck in the ’70s. (In fact, were it not for the satellite dishes and the more-or-less current cars, one could be forgiven for thinking this a period piece.)

The exploration of Maori tradition was also fascinating to me, as it is a culture I have had little exposure to and certainly did not tie to New Zealand. I was particularly interested to see Cliff Curtis (filmography), an actor I remember from several movies. Thing is, he seems to be playing a different ethnicity* in each: in Blow, he’s “Escobar”, in Three Kings, Amir Abdullah, and the like. Curtis must feel more comfortable here in his role as Porourangi; he was born in New Zealand.

Whale Rider received a PG-13 rating, and Roger Ebert had a little something to say about that. In his review, he urged parents to “take the kids,” a suggestion that was soon reprinted in the film’s ads. The MPAA took umbrage, saying the makers shouldn’t encourage kids to go a -13 movie. Ebert rightly noted in his most recent show that he said “take the kids”, not “send” — and a -13 rating for this film was a joke anyway. He’s right: other then one very brief appearance of a hash pipe (which is neither used nor referred to) there is little that even approaches controversial.

* It made me recall a conversation I had with a friend. Her argument: sometimes it seems that Hollywood just seeks out an actor who “looks ethnic.” Perhaps the classic example: Lainie Kazan, native New Yorker who has played Italian, Greek, and Jewish mothers. (She is of Spanish and Russian descent.)

Robert Rodriguez in Wired: “The only reason you would shoot on film would be for nostalgia reasons…It’s embarrassing. We’re still dragging that same film corpse around after 100 years.”

Rodriguez joins George Lucas and James Cameron as vocal proponents of HD, specifically the Sony CineAlta equipment. Are these professionals the first wave, or tilting at windmills?

A few thoughts:

• Over the last century, film has made massive improvements in resolution, speed/grain, and range. Is it really “embarassing” that the same mechanical equipment used for Gandhi (Academy Award, Best Cinematography, 1983) can also be used for Road to Perdition (Academy Award, Best Achievement in Cinematography, 2003), while in the two decades since, Kodak’s Vision2 and other stocks have continued to improve?
• HD is a system developed for TV: the “high” means relative to the (atrocious) definition of NTSC television. Using an HD camera may be great for the local news, but now imagine blowing up that same amount of detail to a cinema screen.
• It’s interesting that the three directors loudly proclaiming that film is dead seem to be doing movies heavily laden with special effects — of course they’ll gravitate to digital acquisition. Lucas, the worst offender, apparently thinks of the camera merely as a way to get human actors into his ILM-generated world. Rodriguez is a guy who likes to do it all himself (note the roles in his filmography.) He’s his own camera operator and editor, so no doubt he loves the fact that no scanning is required before he’s happily editing away in his garage. Fine, but not how everyone works.
• Have you heard any cinematographers clamoring for HD lately? Me neither.
• Touting the cost savings of HD is a bit misleading: when the images don’t match, can you make direct comparisons? True, there is an order of magnitude difference to the expense, but let’s face it: studios aren’t going to allow directors to spend those dollars somewhere else (screenwriting, perhaps?) — they’ll just expect HD productions to do more with less. And the result will be uglier films; even Episode II, which was shot entirely on HD with a budget exceeding the GNP of Guatemala, looked like shit.

Moral: digital has much promise, but it hasn’t beaten film yet. Let us praise the American Society of Cinematographers and others who quietly ignore a few impatient directors as they look for tools that will take motion picture quality forward. Still, Rodriguez and his acolytes can take heart: there is some very promising equipment on the horizon.

I found this excerpt from a Harper’s article today, and I’m interested to read the whole argument:

“The New Censorship does not work by keeping things secret. Are our leaders liars and criminals? Is the government run by wealthy corporations and political elites? Are we all being slowly poisoned? The answer is yes to all of the above, and there’s hardly a soul on these shores who doesn’t know it. The reign of George II practically revels in this perverse transparency. Oil policy created in backrooms from Enron and ExxonMobil. Naked pandering to the electricity industry in rolling back clean-air mandates. Accounting firms such as Arthur Andersen buying even ‘watchdog’ liberal senators such as Christopher Dodd. Elections rigged with brother Jeb’s connivance in Florida. All of these details are utterly public, reported in newspapers, television newscasts, and books, yet it’s perfectly safe for this stuff to be known. The genius of the New Censorship is that it works through the obscenity of absolute openness.”
— Curtis White, “The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don’t Think for Themselves“

Speaking of “rigged elections,” I also came across this incendiary Flash presentation today.

In both cases, I wasn’t even looking for political information: one came from a media site, the other a personal finance site. Ahh, the Internet.

There’s little that’s sweet in this raw portrayal of a 15yo boy who enters drug culture with a hope of saving his mother from it. It’s captivating and often painful to watch actor Martin Compston in his big-screen debut as Liam, a “wee man” who is expected to pass drugs to his jailed mother on behalf of her sleazy boyfriend.

In the months leading up to her release, Liam’s life is thrown violently into flux, as he tries to secure a good life for his mother, sister, and young nephew. The results are as impermanent as they are uncertain.

Like all good movies, Sixteen stimulates conversation and reflection; my fellow moviegoer and I discussed the themes in some detail as we drove back to Ames. Much like the filmmakers, we found no easy answers.

(Note: In a welcome nod to the film’s Scotland setting, the film comes complete with subtitles.)

This week Wired reports that tiny charter company Southeast Airlines plans to outfit its planes with digital video cameras to monitor passengers during flights. They also plan to archive the video for ten years.

There’s a valid debate here, but I’m going to side-step it and note only that I’ve said for years that live monitoring of the cockpit seems like an excellent idea. If a pilot isn’t keying his/her mic, authorities can go to the live feed. When accidents happen and the ‘black box‘ cannot be located, there’s always the data center. Recordings can be automatically erased for flights which land without incident.

But back to Southeast. The idea of monitoring passengers bothers me, sure, but even worse is the company they’ve tipped to do it: Sky Way Aircraft. The home page, with its faux seal and prominent “threat advisory,” leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

A moment’s read compounds the feeling. The technology overview begins by noting a Clearwater facility “will provide” services and “will utilize” a WorldCom network. Their 162-node wireless network is “under development” (does that mean construction or planning?) Then you hit this line: “The original cost for this network, that has been in operation for the past 10 years, is in excess of $1.5 billion dollars.” So does it exist or not? Who paid the $1.5 billion?

The second paragraph makes more promises about what the network will do and flaunts its “DOD-5” status. (What the hell that means, I don’t know.) I do know this: this company is selling vaporware, and not well. Hoover’s — even the business phone books — have no record of the organization, and the domain name is registered to Brent Kovar of “WoDark.” That is, unless you look up the skywaynet.us domain, which is owned by Brent Kovar of “Freedom Toyz.” Presumably, Brent is related to the “jkovar@skywaynet.us” you get when you click “Investor Relations.”

This from a company that promises to offer “facial recognition, manifest data, telemetry, health / welfare captures and other secure information.” So once again it comes back to the classic question:

Who’s watching the watchers?

A few days ago I was able to snag a DVD of an excellent film, Y Tu Mamá También, at a most welcome $9.99. Of course, like any self-respecting film buff, I picked up the unrated version.

There seems to be more and more of these dual releases entering the marketplace. Though I never feel confusion over which version to buy, I do wonder just how much they differ. I know, for example, that in Todd Solondz’ Storytelling, the “rated” version differs only in that one scene contains a large black box. This is easy to determine because both versions are on a single disc, and run-times are identical. But what of other flicks?

What we need is a resource that compares versions. It’s not merely of interest for those slightly off-the-beaten-path titles I’ve mentioned above. There’s also Old School, Road Trip, and American Pie for the more popularly-minded crowd.

There are clearly people out there with the time to do it.