Just a quick note on the remarkable ending of the Academy Awards show last night - talk about history being made live on TV! The wrong movie being named as winner of Best Picture, with the correction coming after speeches have been made ... oh, the drama!
It was fun to watch, but it never should have gone on as long as it was allowed to. It was mostly hubris by Price Waterhouse Cooper, of course. Such a mistake had never happened before (the talk of Jack Palance naming Marisa Tomei the Supporting Actress winner by mistake in 1993 should certainly be laid to rest now), although they did get lucky in 1985 when Laurence Olivier presented Best Picture to Amadeus. It seems he didn't read the card with the winning film on it, but just read the name of the movie at the top of the alphabetical list, which luckily happened to also be the winning film.
Officials from PWC have said that while the possibility of an onstage mistake is "very unlikely," they did intend to take quick action to correct any such mistake. The two representatives from the firm are in the wings on each side of the stage, each with a full complement of envelopes for all the categories. Which is where the error came in last night - Emma Stone's Lead Actress envelope from one side of the stage went out with Leo DiCaprio for presentation to her, but the duplicate envelope from the other side apparently went out with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, instead of the Best Picture envelope. That's got to be a screwup by PWC ... and they didn't exactly take "quick action."
Beatty opened the envelope, looked at the card, realized it said "Emma Stone, La La Land," and was obviously confused. He actually looked in the envelope again, to see if there was a different card in there. He stalled for a time a bit, then handed to card to Dunaway (maybe to see if she could figure it out - instead she just read out the name of the film, which is a totally understandable thing to do after Beatty has been stammering and stalling that long). Of course, one or both of them should have stopped the show and called for help from the wings, since that's what the PWC folks are there for, but, whatever. They didn't. They read what they saw on the card, and announced La La Land.
That's where things should have been corrected. But, no ... the cast and crew of La La Land made their way to the stage, two producers got their hands on Oscars (another clue ... there would have been three if La La Land had actually won), and two people got through their speeches with a third getting started on his. Meanwhile, you could see a flurry of activity onstage behind the microphone, and once you saw the fellow with the headset on, you figured something was up.
Well, it shouldn't have taken that damn long! The PWC reps know what's in the envelopes, they knew when Dunaway announced La La Land that it was wrong, and they should have known they'd better get that corrected right now ... instead, train wreck.
I'm sure this will change procedures for upcoming Oscar presentations, which will be all well and good. This certainly wasn't an earth-shattering error that changed the fates of nations or anything, but it was damn good TV drama. I did feel bad for the La La Land folks who got a couple of minutes worth of joy and excitement, only to be rushed off the stage because somebody screwed up in the wings. Much credit to the producer of La La Land, who was incredibly gracious and heartfelt in announcing the actual winner, Moonlight, and urging them to come up to take their time in the sun, but geez ... you had one job, Price Waterhouse Cooper. One job.
Monday, February 27, 2017
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Whiplash
They say if you don't like the weather in Iowa, wait five minutes. I figure they say that about a lot of places, but being from Iowa, I think it fits pretty darn well. Some of the time, at least.
Take this week. We had really unseasonable warmth for February the past couple of weeks, culminating this past Wednesday with highs in the upper 70s for eastern Iowa. Those weren't record highs just for February 22nd, but record highs for February as a whole. It was ridiculously nice, like a day in May or early June.
It's Saturday now, and I just scraped a light coating of snow and sleet off my driveway. Everything is white again, and we will stay below freezing all day. Go 80 or so miles north, and they're dealing with close to a foot of snow in some places, with blizzard conditions Friday closing schools and businesses. It was surreal watching television Friday, just two days after walking down the street in shorts, seeing the scroll of schools closed because of the blizzard conditions.
So the weather can definitely give you whiplash around here, no doubt. I think that also fits the bill with what our legislature is up to this session. You see, not surprisingly, Republicans were swept into majorities in the Iowa House and Senate last November, riding that Trumpian wave of anger at "something" and hatred of Hillary. No, it wasn't just a repudiation of incumbents in general; that I could understand, as an anger at how things are going and we the ticked-off voters are going to throw the bums out. No, instead, they returned most of the incumbents, with just enough new GOP faces in there to turn the Senate red.
Iowa generally likes to keep their state government split. If one party has both the House and Senate, we usually like to have a governor of the other party. If the governor and one of the legislative bodies share a party, generally we like to have the other party hold the other house - for the past several years the GOP held the House and the governor's office, so the Democrats had a small majority in the Senate. That seems to hold back the worst urges of one party or the other to do massive changes in a legislative session.
But now its 2017. Similar to DC (thanks a bunch, Trump voters), the Iowa Republicans are in charge everywhere, and there's practically nothing the Democrats can do to stop or slow things down. Not unexpectedly, the GOP is going drunk on their newfound power like a teenager with a fresh driver's license and no curfew. Is that even a good metaphor? Well, "drunk" and "teenager driving" does seem to fit. The Republicans campaigned on rolling back regulations, improving the business climate and jobs, jobs, jobs. That was what they said were their prime goals, if elected. So now that they've caught that car they've been chasing the past couple of decades, what are they doing with it?
Pretty much the first thing out on the table was a plan to rearrange state funding of women's health in order to cut Planned Parenthood out of the picture. Okay, given the GOP absolutely hates PP in general, that's not a big surprise - the thing is, it was federal funds coming to Iowa that were being used to subsidize PP in the first place. The Republicans had to turn down that funding, or send it in another direction, so they could make state rules to prohibit any money going to groups that provide abortions. Again, this isn't a huge surprise to anyone paying attention, and a majority of Republican voters are probably wholly in favor of this, but the contortions the legislators had to go through to rearrange the funding was certainly unseemly.
Next was a bill touted as "tweaking" Chapter 20 of the state code, which governs collective bargaining between the state and public employee unions. Nobody really campaigned on this, and if they did, it was about "tweaks" and "touchups" to the law, which according to some GOP spokespeople really needed improving since it hadn't been touched in 40 years. Better get to work on some of those laws about murder and robbery, guys, it's been a lot longer since they've been "improved." Anyway, the bill wasn't about "tweaking" - it stripped every topic except wages out of the law, and wages can only increase by a limited amount each year. Health insurance? Time off? Other benefits? Sick leave? Nope - now the state can just drop a handbook on the table and say, "Take it or leave it, this is what you're gonna get." In addition, it requires public unions to recertify with a vote of the bargaining unit every year, requiring a majority of the unit to pass (instead of a majority of those voting, which is how every single one of those legislators got their jobs), and ends the automatic withholding of union dues from paychecks, forcing members to pay the union directly. It's a blatantly obvious union-busting bill, very similiar to what was rammed through in Wisconsin a couple of years ago, and also blatantly obviously something financial backers of GOP politicians are working on across the country (the Koch brothers and ALEC, to name a couple).
So nice job of bait and switch, GOP - we'll tell you "tweak" and once you vote for us we'll rip the heart out of public unions. Aren't we great?
Also rolling through the statehouse was deep reductions in education funding, both K-12 and higher education. Iowa's universities and community colleges were told to cut back on spending they've already planned in the current semester, which resulted (at the University of Iowa anyway) in a couple of thousand students losing scholarship funds. (Funnily enough, the GOP speaker of the house angrily called out the university for "playing politics" by cutting scholarships. Hey! You're the one who told them to cut spending! It's gotta come from somewhere!)
The blame for these spending reductions, in public employees, education, and elsewhere, was put on a slowdown in Iowa's economy over the past year or so that meant less in tax revenue. Yes, it's true the economy has slowed ... but one of the big legacies of the Branstad administration over the past few years has been massive tax cuts, especially in property taxes, and tax incentive giveaways to corporations. It's disingenuous, to me, for the Republicans to cry their hands are tied in state spending because of the lower budget expectations, when part of what caused these expectations was big ol' GOP tax cuts.
Oh, but they're not finished! You know what else will roll back regulations and improve the business climate? How about bringing back the death penalty? That's seriously another topic on the table. Or giving Iowa a "stand your ground" self-defense law? Because nobody with a gun should ever have to back away from a dispute - what's the good of having a gun if you can't use it, right? Oh, yeah, and kids younger than 14 should be able to use handguns, and gun licenses should be good for life, and ... plenty of job-enhancing, economy-improving ideas there, right? Right? And I haven't even started on the notion of a Voter ID law, which is also under discussion. It's like a right-wing wish list, and they're running right down it, checking them off merrily as they go.
So, anyway, whiplash. I think even a lot of voters who helped put the GOP in the driver's seat are thinking the party's gone a little nuts with their newfound power - but there's just as many others who are gleefully rubbing their hands together at the notion of getting something over on these "liberal snowflakes." Unfortunately the only way to tell if these legislators will pay or be rewarded for their overreach is what happens in November 2018. And plenty of damage can happen before then.
Take this week. We had really unseasonable warmth for February the past couple of weeks, culminating this past Wednesday with highs in the upper 70s for eastern Iowa. Those weren't record highs just for February 22nd, but record highs for February as a whole. It was ridiculously nice, like a day in May or early June.
It's Saturday now, and I just scraped a light coating of snow and sleet off my driveway. Everything is white again, and we will stay below freezing all day. Go 80 or so miles north, and they're dealing with close to a foot of snow in some places, with blizzard conditions Friday closing schools and businesses. It was surreal watching television Friday, just two days after walking down the street in shorts, seeing the scroll of schools closed because of the blizzard conditions.
So the weather can definitely give you whiplash around here, no doubt. I think that also fits the bill with what our legislature is up to this session. You see, not surprisingly, Republicans were swept into majorities in the Iowa House and Senate last November, riding that Trumpian wave of anger at "something" and hatred of Hillary. No, it wasn't just a repudiation of incumbents in general; that I could understand, as an anger at how things are going and we the ticked-off voters are going to throw the bums out. No, instead, they returned most of the incumbents, with just enough new GOP faces in there to turn the Senate red.
Iowa generally likes to keep their state government split. If one party has both the House and Senate, we usually like to have a governor of the other party. If the governor and one of the legislative bodies share a party, generally we like to have the other party hold the other house - for the past several years the GOP held the House and the governor's office, so the Democrats had a small majority in the Senate. That seems to hold back the worst urges of one party or the other to do massive changes in a legislative session.
But now its 2017. Similar to DC (thanks a bunch, Trump voters), the Iowa Republicans are in charge everywhere, and there's practically nothing the Democrats can do to stop or slow things down. Not unexpectedly, the GOP is going drunk on their newfound power like a teenager with a fresh driver's license and no curfew. Is that even a good metaphor? Well, "drunk" and "teenager driving" does seem to fit. The Republicans campaigned on rolling back regulations, improving the business climate and jobs, jobs, jobs. That was what they said were their prime goals, if elected. So now that they've caught that car they've been chasing the past couple of decades, what are they doing with it?
Pretty much the first thing out on the table was a plan to rearrange state funding of women's health in order to cut Planned Parenthood out of the picture. Okay, given the GOP absolutely hates PP in general, that's not a big surprise - the thing is, it was federal funds coming to Iowa that were being used to subsidize PP in the first place. The Republicans had to turn down that funding, or send it in another direction, so they could make state rules to prohibit any money going to groups that provide abortions. Again, this isn't a huge surprise to anyone paying attention, and a majority of Republican voters are probably wholly in favor of this, but the contortions the legislators had to go through to rearrange the funding was certainly unseemly.
Next was a bill touted as "tweaking" Chapter 20 of the state code, which governs collective bargaining between the state and public employee unions. Nobody really campaigned on this, and if they did, it was about "tweaks" and "touchups" to the law, which according to some GOP spokespeople really needed improving since it hadn't been touched in 40 years. Better get to work on some of those laws about murder and robbery, guys, it's been a lot longer since they've been "improved." Anyway, the bill wasn't about "tweaking" - it stripped every topic except wages out of the law, and wages can only increase by a limited amount each year. Health insurance? Time off? Other benefits? Sick leave? Nope - now the state can just drop a handbook on the table and say, "Take it or leave it, this is what you're gonna get." In addition, it requires public unions to recertify with a vote of the bargaining unit every year, requiring a majority of the unit to pass (instead of a majority of those voting, which is how every single one of those legislators got their jobs), and ends the automatic withholding of union dues from paychecks, forcing members to pay the union directly. It's a blatantly obvious union-busting bill, very similiar to what was rammed through in Wisconsin a couple of years ago, and also blatantly obviously something financial backers of GOP politicians are working on across the country (the Koch brothers and ALEC, to name a couple).
So nice job of bait and switch, GOP - we'll tell you "tweak" and once you vote for us we'll rip the heart out of public unions. Aren't we great?
Also rolling through the statehouse was deep reductions in education funding, both K-12 and higher education. Iowa's universities and community colleges were told to cut back on spending they've already planned in the current semester, which resulted (at the University of Iowa anyway) in a couple of thousand students losing scholarship funds. (Funnily enough, the GOP speaker of the house angrily called out the university for "playing politics" by cutting scholarships. Hey! You're the one who told them to cut spending! It's gotta come from somewhere!)
The blame for these spending reductions, in public employees, education, and elsewhere, was put on a slowdown in Iowa's economy over the past year or so that meant less in tax revenue. Yes, it's true the economy has slowed ... but one of the big legacies of the Branstad administration over the past few years has been massive tax cuts, especially in property taxes, and tax incentive giveaways to corporations. It's disingenuous, to me, for the Republicans to cry their hands are tied in state spending because of the lower budget expectations, when part of what caused these expectations was big ol' GOP tax cuts.
Oh, but they're not finished! You know what else will roll back regulations and improve the business climate? How about bringing back the death penalty? That's seriously another topic on the table. Or giving Iowa a "stand your ground" self-defense law? Because nobody with a gun should ever have to back away from a dispute - what's the good of having a gun if you can't use it, right? Oh, yeah, and kids younger than 14 should be able to use handguns, and gun licenses should be good for life, and ... plenty of job-enhancing, economy-improving ideas there, right? Right? And I haven't even started on the notion of a Voter ID law, which is also under discussion. It's like a right-wing wish list, and they're running right down it, checking them off merrily as they go.
So, anyway, whiplash. I think even a lot of voters who helped put the GOP in the driver's seat are thinking the party's gone a little nuts with their newfound power - but there's just as many others who are gleefully rubbing their hands together at the notion of getting something over on these "liberal snowflakes." Unfortunately the only way to tell if these legislators will pay or be rewarded for their overreach is what happens in November 2018. And plenty of damage can happen before then.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
So Here's What I'm Thinking
I've had a blog for two or three years, but it's been focused on my radio play-by-play work for the Xavier Saints football team on KMRY radio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (1450 AM, 93.1 FM, and online on the worldwide web - obligatory shilling complete.) It seemed kind of odd to me to use that venue as a regular ol' personal blog, with all my aches and pains and political hot takes and views on popular culture and whatnot. So I split them up.
My high school football blog is still up: Third And A Mile. Hop on over if you're interested in Iowa high school football topics, sizzling playoff predictions, and how the Saints are doing in the fall. It's February right now, so not much going on at the moment. Also, I kinda tailed off with my content with a game left to play last fall, so that's on me. (Spoiler alert: The undefeated Saints made it to the state 3A semifinal and lost to eventual champion Pella on the last play of the game.)
This blog will be more about me, what I'm thinking about, what I'm complaining about, how I'm dealing with my cats and my mole problem in the yard, stuff like that. Oh, and here's the inspiration for (part of) my blog title:
Yep, I'm feeling older and older by the day, so why not embrace it? Plus, it's The Simpsons when it was good, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.
In addition, considering the way the political climate has turned since November, I'm also thinking about starting up another re-watch of the NBC 1999-2007 TV series The West Wing. I just finished re-watching the entire series on Netflix a couple of months ago (a project that took me around a year and a half, I think, to get through all seven seasons), so I'm sure my wife will roll her eyes at me if I mention diving back in to Season 1 again already - but you know, I'm wondering, if I watch The West Wing with enough conviction and strength and tenacity, maybe I can transport myself into that universe. A nation led by a President Bartlet would be a far, far better nation to live in than the current Trump dystopia, I tell you what. Plus, that's the inspiration for the rest of my blog title; there's plenty of walking and talking going on in Sorkin's White House. You'll get a cardio workout just watching a couple of episodes.
Should I get after this project again soon (and I own the complete series on DVD, so I would watch them this time rather than using Netflix), I will talk about each episode here. It would be a chance to go over some great Sorkinisms, talk about the performances and relationships of the cast and characters, and trace the seven-season arc of the Bartlet administration. I mean, this series was a huge influence on Lin-Manuel Miranda and his creation of Hamilton, so it's still relevant now in Trump's America. Plus, it's just so damn good - yeah, Season 5 is a little rough (I remember I actually stopped watching during the original run sometime during that season, only picking it up again during Season 6 and the start of the Santos campaign; which made my recent re-watch even better to give me the chance to see some of those episodes for the first time. Even Access.).
So check back soon, tell your friends, and we'll chat about stuff. Maybe the Pilot episode of The West Wing, who knows ... where the President comes to a sudden arboreal stop, Sam Seaborn accidentally sleeps with a prostitute ("did you trip?"), and we meet Leo, Josh, Donna, CJ, Toby, Mrs. Landingham, and all the rest of these wonderful characters created by Aaron Sorkin, before he burned out and left the show in a cocaine-fueled haze after Season 4.
Yes, even Mandy. For one single, solitary season, even Mandy.
My high school football blog is still up: Third And A Mile. Hop on over if you're interested in Iowa high school football topics, sizzling playoff predictions, and how the Saints are doing in the fall. It's February right now, so not much going on at the moment. Also, I kinda tailed off with my content with a game left to play last fall, so that's on me. (Spoiler alert: The undefeated Saints made it to the state 3A semifinal and lost to eventual champion Pella on the last play of the game.)
This blog will be more about me, what I'm thinking about, what I'm complaining about, how I'm dealing with my cats and my mole problem in the yard, stuff like that. Oh, and here's the inspiration for (part of) my blog title:
In addition, considering the way the political climate has turned since November, I'm also thinking about starting up another re-watch of the NBC 1999-2007 TV series The West Wing. I just finished re-watching the entire series on Netflix a couple of months ago (a project that took me around a year and a half, I think, to get through all seven seasons), so I'm sure my wife will roll her eyes at me if I mention diving back in to Season 1 again already - but you know, I'm wondering, if I watch The West Wing with enough conviction and strength and tenacity, maybe I can transport myself into that universe. A nation led by a President Bartlet would be a far, far better nation to live in than the current Trump dystopia, I tell you what. Plus, that's the inspiration for the rest of my blog title; there's plenty of walking and talking going on in Sorkin's White House. You'll get a cardio workout just watching a couple of episodes.
Should I get after this project again soon (and I own the complete series on DVD, so I would watch them this time rather than using Netflix), I will talk about each episode here. It would be a chance to go over some great Sorkinisms, talk about the performances and relationships of the cast and characters, and trace the seven-season arc of the Bartlet administration. I mean, this series was a huge influence on Lin-Manuel Miranda and his creation of Hamilton, so it's still relevant now in Trump's America. Plus, it's just so damn good - yeah, Season 5 is a little rough (I remember I actually stopped watching during the original run sometime during that season, only picking it up again during Season 6 and the start of the Santos campaign; which made my recent re-watch even better to give me the chance to see some of those episodes for the first time. Even Access.).
So check back soon, tell your friends, and we'll chat about stuff. Maybe the Pilot episode of The West Wing, who knows ... where the President comes to a sudden arboreal stop, Sam Seaborn accidentally sleeps with a prostitute ("did you trip?"), and we meet Leo, Josh, Donna, CJ, Toby, Mrs. Landingham, and all the rest of these wonderful characters created by Aaron Sorkin, before he burned out and left the show in a cocaine-fueled haze after Season 4.
Yes, even Mandy. For one single, solitary season, even Mandy.
To Begin With ...
This is the beginning. The very beginning. A very fine place to start. Hopefully there will be lots, lots more to come, and hopefully it will be enjoyable, informative, and kind of funny. It's a nice goal to have!
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