We're in for nasty weather

The weather in the Chicago area the last couple days has been nothing short of abominable. Here's the approximate pattern, as seen through my eyes:

9 am: Clear, blue sky; temperature in the high 70s/low 80s. Looks like a gorgeous day.

1 pm: Similar to before, but ten degrees hotter and twice as humid. No longer a terribly pleasant day, but at least a tolerable one.

3 pm: Out the office window, the sky goes totally dark. Rain pours so heavily that nearby buildings cannot even be seen.

7 pm: Rain continues with minimal periods of abatement. Near-constant lightning. Rain runs the gamut between total deluge and normal heavy shower.

10 pm: Rain stops; skies clear in preparation for next morning's bullshit niceness.

I've missed a lot of the absolute worst; Leah describes a pretty crazy situation from this afternoon. I can confirm that it certainly looked as bad as it was; as noted above, the rain was so heavy at times that I couldn't see farther than the next building over, which is completely fucking insane. But I've managed to take lunch early enough to avoid the punctual mid-afternoon storms, and by the time I've left at least the worst of the wind has already died down. I saw a lot of after-effect today, though.




Click on the thumbnail for a larger view. No, that's not my car, thank God, but it is the car that was/is parked on the street pretty much directly in front of my apartment. And when I came home today, at about 8:00, it was pretty well covered by this tree which had been uprooted. Fortunately for the car and its owner, most of what was really on the car was a large branch, and even then some wires had stopped the branch from hitting the car too hard, although frankly I'd be even more worried by the wires at this point.

Still: damn. I know I've only been here seven years and only four summers, but this has to be the worst spell of weather I've seen yet. Usually this sort of stuff happens once a year; this was twice in two days, and according to the forecast we may have more on the way. Maybe tomorrow I'll at least think to take an umbrella rather than letting blue sky in the morning fool me. (Blue sky at morning, sailors take warning, right?)

Hey, who left all this garbage on the steps of Congress?

Showing he completely lacks a sense of irony or historical perspective, President Bush gave a speech today in which he compared Iraq to Vietnam. I know what you're thinking - finally, he admits it! But no, surprisingly, he didn't take the "quagmire we should never have gotten into" approach.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

We got into the Vietnam War because we were afraid of the domino effect of Communism. Except that the Communists were already active in Laos long before we got seriously invested in Vietnam. Also, what were we planning on doing? Fighting wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia simultaneously? The whole enterprise was an absolute lost cause right from the start, to say nothing of the fact that we got into it because of red panic and the need, which continues to this day, to play World Police.

We left because the war was supremely unpopular. And why? Because (a) we weren't making progress; (b) stories of war crimes like My Lai were coming out and turning people against the military; (c) we spent 15 years in Vietnam and lost 47,000+ lives (and ruined thousands more), and for what? We couldn't win and Vietnam still went to the Communists. How many more years and lives did we need to spend? Does Bush legitimately think we ever could have won? I know he wasn't there - much too busy not flying planes over here - but this just displays a level of cluelessness that... well, no, no level of cluelessness from Bush surprises me at this point.

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.

A lot of innocent citizens were killed by Agent Orange, too. Also, the "killing fields" were in Cambodia. Perhaps Bush wishes we'd gotten involved in a difficult, possibly unwinnable war there too.

Look: there's no denying that a lot of what went on in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the years following the Vietnam War was pretty unspeakable. But a lot of what the U.S. did during the war itself is pretty unspeakable too. And there's two points I would offer up on this front:

(1) It is highly, highly debatable - if not, based on actual results, an outright lie - that continued American involvement in the Vietnam War would have prevented the things that Bush references. To prevent the killing fields, we would have to have started a war with Cambodia, either abandoning Vietnam anyway or drafting millions more troops. Does this sound like it would have been a good idea to anybody? How long does Bush want the Vietnam War to have lasted? Into the 1980s?

(2) It is pretty convenient that we were willing to bomb the shit out of poor countries without nuclear technology and yet we leave China alone. Considering the millions of people killed by the Communists there - even if the bulk of those weren't as intentional as in Cambodia - and the human rights abuses alleged to this day, you'd think we wouldn't want to get in bed with them. Wait, what's that? They're one of our largest trade partners? Huh.

But House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said more Democrats are "bucking their party leaders" in acknowledging progress in Iraq.

"Many rank-and-file Democrats have seen this progress firsthand and are now acknowledging the successes of a strategy they've repeatedly opposed," Boehner said in a statement. "But Democratic leaders, deeply invested in losing the war, would rather move the goalposts and claim that a precipitous withdrawal is the right approach despite the overwhelming evidence of significant progress."

It's convenient that the only Democrats supposedly acknowledging the successes of the surge are the ones who we aren't likely to hear from. But let's assume Boehner is right on that point. Can the Republicans please stop saying that Democrats want to lose the war? This isn't just disingenuous, it's a lie. John Boehner and everyone who has parroted this talking point for months, if not years, is a liar. Democrats don't want to lose - they just don't think winning is possible. And they're right. Because it isn't.

Very quickly: explain to me the stated goal of the Iraq war.

Was it to rid Iraq of WMDs? Well, seeing as how there weren't any in the first place, I guess we can claim to have accomplished that.

Was it to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's oppressive rule? We did that, although it's so far arguable whether the complete power vacuum left, and the unsolved and unsolvable conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, is really a whole lot better. But let's say that it is. We've done that. So why are we still there?

Was it to rid Iraq of terrorism? That certainly wasn't the stated goal, but let's give the administration the benefit of the doubt and say okay, that was the goal as it evolved. So now that's the goal.

Now hear this: if winning a war is defined as meeting your goal, and our goal is to completely rid Iraq of terrorism... WE ARE NEVER GOING TO WIN THIS WAR. It is functionally impossible. Terrorists aren't beholden to a population. They aren't going to surrender based on a reduction in their numbers. This is the critical point that the war hawks have never understood: we aren't fighting another country this time. This isn't an enemy that borders contain. And that's why drawing comparisons to Vietnam, or Korea, or World Fucking War II, all of which Bush did in his speech, is totally specious. Sure, it sounds great to say, "Hey, no one thought we could make Japan a democracy! But we did, dammit! And that means we can do the same anywhere!" Because yeah, I would totally compare Iraq and Japan. Are you even listening to yourself? I'm not saying Iraq can't turn into a futuristic, technological paradise through the sheer force of Bush's conviction, but... well, no, I guess I am saying that. 'Tain't happenin'. It's a ridiculous suggestion anyway - the fact that Japan and South Korea are free and prosperous nations does not mean that any nation we want to fix up can be fixed up. Also, Japan and South Korea never had to deal with the kind of internal religious struggles that are going to continue to cripple Iraq, nor with the kind of terrorism that has become such an established force in that region that it will probably never be stamped out entirely. It's an idiotic comparison, made by an idiot, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. And oh hey, looks like commanders on the ground are starting to believe that democracy in Iraq is looking less feasible. Good to know we've been so successful.

The old adage is that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Bush and those who think like him have taken this one step further and one step worse - they don't ignore history, they just use it in all the wrong ways. Bush has taken a war that we probably should never have been involved in to begin with and couldn't win, and used it to argue that unwinnable wars can magically become winnable if you just dedicate endless time and resources. And a million monkeys with typewriters will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare, but I'm not going to sit around watching them try.

The San Francisco trick

Alma and I are out in San Francisco for her latest conference. This has got to be the single most expensive city I've ever been to, at least as a self-paying adult. The cab ride from Oakland Airport into the city cost $60. Sixty freaking dollars! (Could we have taken BART? Yes, although you have to catch a connecting bus to the actual train, and I wasn't sure how close it would get us to the hotel. The answer turned out to be "Very close," so the trip back will be made by train. But still, people! It costs 80 cents per mile more than Chicago to ride in a cab, so if you're going 20 miles, that's $16 more to take a cab in SF than Chicago.

I guess apart from that it hasn't been that bad - more expensive than Chicago, to be sure, but not by quite as large a percentage. Still, I can't imagine living in a place like this full time unless I was making an absolute crapton. (There are plenty of other reasons I couldn't live in San Francisco full-time, but that's a good one to start with.)

We're going out to check out Fisherman's Wharf, and/or Chinatown, since today is our more touristy day. So hopefully I have more interesting and/or positive things to say later.

Culinary globetrotting

create your own visited country map

This map, as anyone familiar with my history will know or at least be able to guess, is not a record of countries I've been to. (Asia is far too well-represented, just for a start.) Rather, it is something of a guess at the countries whose cuisines I have sampled. Some are fairly encompassing (India, Mexico), some were a single trip (Vietnam, Ethiopia), some are more on the order of a dish or two in other settings (South Africa, South Korea), and some I've had the more Americanized versions of (China, France, Italy). I left out some where I wasn't sure if I'd ever tried them or not, but in general I think this covers the bulk of my culinary experiences up until this point - not shy, but not incredibly adventurous either.

In lieu of actual globetrotting, however, it recently occurred to me that it might be a fun activity - especially living in a large city like Chicago where such a thing might actually be possible - to travel around the world in food form instead. Alma and I went out for dinner yesterday with this idea in mind; the initial Culinary Globetrotting review appears over at The Frugal Gourmand.

There are just oodles of possibilities out there; a cast through Time Out Chicago's recent reviews alone offers up Morocco, Vietnam, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Algeria, Guatemala, Mexico, Korea, China, Italy, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Japan, Lebanon, Thailand, and Turkey - and that's before you've even gotten out of the Andersonville/Edgewater/Uptown section, the first of 21 geographically-separated pages of reviews. I'm willing to bet one could find nearly every discrete world cuisine if one were willing to criss-cross the city looking for it. I don't know if I'm going to be that gung-ho - or if Alma would let me be, even if I wanted - but a new cuisine every few weeks certainly wouldn't be the least interesting "project" I ever threw myself into. For me, anyway. The rest of you will have to deal with entries like this, although they'll generally be confined to the Frugal Gourmand (which I imagine means no one will see them).

Problem is, a lot of these assholes are dumbasses

You may have heard by now of the follow-up to the Pat and Sheena Wheaton story - the couple from New Zealand who wanted to name their baby "4Real," as dissected in this post. Well, good news! They're not going to get to name the kid 4Real. What's that? They're... they're doing something even worse?

Pat and Sheena Wheaton say they will get around the decision by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages by officially naming their son Superman but referring to him as 4Real, the New Zealand Herald newspaper has reported.

You know, if you're just going to fuck this kid over by calling him 4Real no matter what the government lets you name him, you'd think you could at least pick a normal name to put on the birth certificate, just on the off chance that he thinks "4Real" is a stupid fucking name. Although with you two asshats for parents, who knows what kind of genius this kid will turn into. I'm thinking a time-traveler who cures cancer and AIDS in the same weekend. The genetic makeup is that flawless.

Seriously, "Superman?" It just sounds like they're bitter and think they're putting one over on the government by choosing an even stupider name. (Yes, it's stupider than 4Real. I went there. You heard me, Nicolas Cage?) It's like they don't even realize that a baby is actually a small person that eventually grows up and will be saddled with the stupid-ass name you gave him until he's 18. The government isn't going to have to live with your shit, guys; your son will. Really, what's the over/under on this couple's combined age? 39.5? If the answer is over, I'm officially horrified. Well, more horrified. 39.5 is also the over/under on the number of weekly playground beatings this kid can expect starting at age 6 or so. I'll take the over.

Same shit, different year

Something is very, very wrong in Hollywood. There is rarely such a thing as a new idea. Take a look at this list of the films that have topped their weekends at the box office this summer season and tell me if you notice a pattern:

5/4: Spider-Man 3
5/11: Spider-Man 3
5/18: Shrek the Third
5/25: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
6/1: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
6/8: Ocean's Thirteen
6/15: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
6/22: Evan Almighty
6/29: Ratatouille
7/6: Transformers
7/13: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
7/20: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
7/27: The Simpsons Movie
8/3: The Bourne Ultimatum
8/10: Rush Hour 3

Noticing a trend? That's right - in 15 summer weeks, four of the top-grossing films have not been sequels. Four. And even that number is a little generous in terms of what it means to the box office; Transformers is an updating of a known property and The Simpsons Movie, coming on the heels of 18 seasons of a popular TV series, might as well be a sequel for all the built-in audience it has. So functionally two #1 movies this summer were actually anything resembling original, and one of those was I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Isn't this kind of a bad thing? I know that movie studios will cling to any popular franchise as long as fans want to see it - and fully seven of the movies concerned were at least the third in their series - but what does it say about the moviegoing public that audiences are so easily satisfied? It's one thing with Bourne Ultimatum, which actually got rave reviews, but Rush Hour 3? Spider-Man 3 seemed to have terrible word of mouth yet it still topped the box office for two weeks in a row. And it takes so little to generate sequels these days; Ocean's Twelve and Fantastic Four were both modest hits that were critically panned, yet that was good enough for the studios to crank out another film for each franchise. In some cases it was the sequels that didn't top the box office that were as emblematic of the trend as anything - Live Free or Die Hard only opened in second place, but it was probably the least necessary sequel of the summer, coming 11 years after the previous installment.

It's not just the American public that should take the blame here; a film like Ocean's Twelve would probably not have gotten a sequel if not for the additional $200m-plus it took in overseas, all of which was pretty much icing on the cake once the domestic gross just made back the production and advertising budgets. But we in America do often seem to lead the clamor for more of the same. Whatever happened to movies that knew to leave well enough alone? Or perhaps more accurately, why aren't people more willing to give those kinds of movies a chance? It seems like any sequel to a movie that was even remotely popular is guaranteed to make $100 million unless it's released years later. (And Live Free or Die Hard has made $130m so far, so not even that seems to be enough.)

Here's all you really need to know: Ratatouille, which got outstanding reviews, has made close to $200 million. And that's very good. But Shrek the Third, a second sequel to a movie which wasn't that great to begin with, and which got mediocre reviews, has made more than $320 million. There is surely not just one reason why, but one of the biggest ones is unquestionably "because kids want to see Shrek again." Dreamworks has already announced its intention to bleed that stone dry with yet more Shrek films, and why not? Until the viewing public is willing to not throw $300 million at a Shrek movie, Hollywood is going to keep making them.

If sequels and remakes bother you as much as they do me, here are some movies to avoid coming up in the next few months:

The Invasion
Halloween
Resident Evil: Extinction
The Heartbreak Kid
Saw IV
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Alien vs. Predator 2

There look to be plenty of watchable movies this fall. I doubt we need to encourage any of these.

I'll take "Vague Stories" for $200, Alex

Not much going on lately. I went to an audition for Jeopardy! today; I shouldn't say a whole lot beyond that, but there isn't much to tell. I'm sure I did well on the actual question part, but personality is part of it and it's hard to cover up the fact that I'm deathly boring. They don't tell you if you're getting on; you just go into a contestant pool and either they pull you out sometime in the next year or two, or they don't. So now we play the waiting game.

...ah, the waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!

This lets me transition to my recent film reviews, which include The Simpsons Movie and the Netflix DVD I had for 11 months, Shopgirl, which turned out to be so bad I hate myself for having held onto it so long. Although after having a DVD that long, really, any movie short of Shawshank would have made me kick myself at least a little.

Other movies I've seen recently which form a backlog of reviews I still need to write: Meatballs, Sicko, Junebug, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Departed, Zodiac. I am quite a ways behind.