Lifted from Rex:

Celebrity crossword enthusiast and breast cancer survivor Christina Applegate is the 2009 Ambassador for Lee National Denim Day (this Friday, Oct. 2, 2009), a day to raise awareness about breast cancer issues as well as raise money for the Women's Cancer Programs of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), including Christina's own foundation, Right Action For Women. They're asking for $5 donations. I'm giving a little more. Go here to donate. Thanks.

I wonder what the chances are of my firm letting us wear denim on Friday? Hmm....

Labels: charities, headlines, people of note

It's distasteful and rather appalling. Almost like a movie by, er, Roman Polanski. But it's an interesting situation. The reactions are not, for once, political. Even The View's Sherri Shepherd weighed in, on Tweeter:

"Whew...hot debate over the Statutory [sic] Rapist Polanski. 45 year old man plies a 13yr old w/drugs & Liquor and anally & orally penetrates her w/o her consent is a RAPIST....We hunt down 75 year old Nazis. We must protect our children."

Just as a point of information and law, the rape was not statutory. The lesser charge to which Polanski was allowed to plea was not statutory because no one suggested it had been consensual sex reworded as statutory rape because of the girl's age. In open court he He acknowledged that he had drugged, sodomized and raped a 13-year-old girl despite her verbalized requests to the contrary.

And now Polanski is being detained in a Swiss jail while Switzerland and the U.S. engage in legal arguments as to whether he will be deported to finally charges and sentencing from his 1977 rape conviction subsequent evading charges and sentencing.

There is no debate even from Polanski himself that he drugged, sodomized and raped a 13-year-old girl. Thirteen is very young even in jaded and drug-worn L.A. It was inexcusable and disgusting and horrible. But apparently there is debate over how he should be handled now, 32 years later. But why now? Because the Swiss want to honor his films? Because Swiss banks keep a lot of peoples' money and want to avoid international monetary sanctions? Seriously: why now??

Despite wowing audiences and critics for decades, many of Polanski's films are fiendishly violent psychological portraits of very nasty people. Which has no bearing on the subject at hand, I suppose, but it's hard not to think there's a connection somewhere.

If you or I or your neighbor did what he did, you or I or he would be locked up, never to see the light of day except for a daily hour in the prison yard.

My questions (well, some of my questions):

(1) Should a person's talent, fame and and money be tickets to freedom from legal responsibility for one's actions?

(2) Should a victim's success in putting a life back together be what it takes to let a perpetrator off the hook?

(3) And if time eradicates the need to punish personal and heinous crime, why punish anyone for such offenses? Why not just put them on a desert island - or let them go away to Europe until the intensity of the moment passes?

(4) But why is Polanski being re-custody-ed now? It's never been a mystery even to casual readers of newspapers and magazines where he was, particularly when he showed up at various award ceremonies during the 31 years since his conviction?

(5) If politics makes strange bedfellows, what do you call it when Woody Allen (whose films are often unarguably brilliant but whose personal life has left something to be, er, desired) is among those publicly entreating the two countries to release Polanski and allow him to get on with his life?

(6) How much fame and talent means a person can commit crimes at will?

(7) And what about the girl's mother? Why wasn't she charged with aiding the crime? What on earth could her plan have been as she dropped off her 13-year-old at the house of two famously drug-taking and sexually adventurous womanizers??

Further reading:
--L.A. Times - long article + Geimer's 1977 testimony + the list of petition signers
--11D - post and several comments
--U.K.'s Guardian article

Labels: people of note, puzzles

...there are rumors afoot in the land that second-hand bookstores are be in some survival trouble. I've heard these rumors from time to time and dismissed them as voiced by people who don't feel passion for books because, well, anyone who really cared about books would know the value - emotional, intellectual and, sometimes, monetary - of all books. New and/or used, handed down or just printed. I am not one who rails against big business or thinks large retail firms are spending much energy plotting to devour and munch on small stores. And I know that like many (most?) book buyers, buying and reading books is not about holding onto old things for holding-on's own sake. It's about treasuring words and stories and writing. There is more to reading than the words in them, witness that even people who like electronic readers for some purposes (me among them) acknowledge that it's not the same as reading books - it's useful, it's informative, it's handy, but it's not the same. Which is off topic but related. Anyway, h/t normblog.

Labels: blogs (others'), books

Norm of the eponymous and unfailingly interesting normblog presented an intriguing book meme. The idea is that, using only books you've read this year, one should provide titles for posed questions and without repeating titles. I do, however, tend to go completely blank as far as titles even though I read one or two or more books a week.

Describe yourself: Almost always the main character of whatever book I've just finished or am currently enjoying. For example, while thinking about this, I've veered wildly from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to The Guernsey Literary...Society to The Marx Sisters to Just Grace to Persuasion to ....

How do you feel? Mennyms (Sylvia Waugh). A young readers' book but maybe not so much when you consider she uses words like "mollify." Also Far From the Madding Crowd.

Describe where you currently live: A Covenant With Death and, simultaneously, Anne of Green Gables and Little Chapel on the River.

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? London (Rutherford), A Remembrance of Things Past, War and Peace.

Your favorite form of transportation? The Phantom Tollbooth.

Your best friend is: A Bridge Too Far and Daddy Nostalgia.

You and your friends are: Song Without End and/or Oh What a Lovely War and/or I'm (we're) All Right, Jack and/or Don Quixote and/or J'accuse and/or Eat, Pray, Love.

What's the weather like? The Bell(weather) Jar.

You fear: The Tears of Autumn and/or Conversations After a Burial.

What is the best advice you have to give? The Healing Imagination.

Thought for the day: Cryptonomicon. Dance to the Music of Time. Both.

How would you like to die? A Postillion Struck by Lightning.

Your soul's present condition? Snakes and Ladders, The Idiot, The Quinqunx.

Now you!

Labels: blogs (others'), books, writing

I completely agree with Joy Behar. The Ukraine's decision is baffling and wrong.

Labels: children, people of note, puzzles

The recent silence from me was neither because I had nothing to say that I thought merited posting nor that I was running scared from commenters - reasons that have previously muffled my singular and oh-so-marvelous voice (ha ha ha). It was "technical difficulties" with my DSL. The issues started Wednesday evening. I called Verizon's supposedly 24/7 technical hotline and spent nearly three hours on the phone, 45 minutes just getting to a live human being and the rest of the time - unsuccessfully - just talking. The tech people a zillion miles away over oceans and seas, and very hard to hear clearly. Plus they seem programmed to say platitudes in response to almost everything (e.g., "that must be very frustating for you" and "I will definitely help you with that" etc.). The talking was time-delayed a bit and the sound quality was dreadful which doesn't give you much confidence since Verizon was first and foremost a PHONE company. I mean, inter-country phone quality was awful when I was in college but that was in the Dark Ages; I would have assumed the cables and/or copper or whatever it is now are far better materials.

I realized at some point that I had unconnected a phone while rearranging furniture on Wednesday, a phone I no longer use, so I thought maybe unplugging the phone had signalled to the modem that something had changed, so I replugged the phone. The modem still wasn't working on Thursday night when I got home, however, so I called the supposedly direct number that one of the tech people had given me. What a surprise (not) to find that it wasn't a direct line at all but just another entré to regular lines with lots and lots of prompts to choose one's way through. As a result, I got to spend another 2-3 hours with all the techies saying they'd tested the connections and everything tested fine so, oh my, it is very hard to know what's wrong and my goodness how frustrating it must be for me. No one could figure out what was wrong except one person I caught who said she'd been out the previous times I called but she could see that the phone line was unresponsive. Eventually the phone got fixed, on Friday, and they told me the DSL line tested fine. However, when I got home Friday night around midnight, the phone was indeed fine but the DSL was still blinking (a/k/a no signal). Saturday morning I called again and spent 4 more hours at it. With no success. (I definitely need to learn to quit sooner.)

So here's the thing. I completely understand that things break and that maybe whatever happened to the phone caused a problem in the modem or even the router. Or maybe vice versa. But it should never have taken four hours for people who know these things to figure out that the first issue was the phone line. Furthermore, a customer should not have to repeat anything dozens of times and STILL be ignored. I wish I was exaggerating about that, but I'm not.

They said they have to come to the house to diagnose and fix the problem, but can't come on Saturdays. Well, that's what they said until I said for something around the two hundredth time (NOT an exaggeration) that I could not be home during the week. Could. Not. Be. Home. During. The. Week. Because it would require taking an entire day off because they won't provide a two-hour window. After all that, I said I guessed the only answer was that I would stop Verizon service and write the PSC about the whole experience just trying to get a DSL up and running. At that point, somehow, magically, the guy said "let me check something" and it seems they CAN send someone on Saturday. Next week.

However, it was THE most unpleasant seven or eight hours. I am not kidding that I said "I can't be home on a weekday but only on weekends" and the man answered with "Well, we will send someone Tuesday, all right?" And that exchange happened dozens of times and even after I was referred to a supervisor and then to his supervisor. No wonder we make jokes about how they are trained to ignore what a person says. They are, in the end, simply beyond infuriating and frustrating and rude. On a scale I have never previously encountered.

I had work I had to do on Saturday evening so the solution I came up with was to try one thing first (buying a (returnable) modem and seeing if it worked because it was the modem that was faulty). Apparently that was not the answer. (I am pretty convinced by now that it's the signal being sent incorrectly but I may never know.) The second thing I did was pick up a NetZero HiSpeed internet connection disc. It isn't particularly high speed, not when you're accustomed to DSL, but it *IS* an internet connection so I was able to do my work. I am grateful.

I've talked to several people about all this and they ALL told me about their or their friends' similar Verizon horror stories, two of which were identical about being on hold forEVER and utterly unable to hear or understand the tech people and having to wait a week to get it fixed. They have ALL switched to cable or Optimum. So if my sample is representative of anything, Verizon had better be worried. I mean, no one had no problems. That's quite startling. Even with a small sample of about a dozen people, 100% is amazing. Do the words AIG and Lehman resonate with their priorities? Don't they realize what we all now know, that huge no longer means invulnerable?

Labels: commerce, modern times, web tools

Man oh man doesn't that look incredibly eerie?! It's apparently a huge dust cover over Sydney (Australia) and it sure looks forbidding and scary as heck and yet people are continuing to exercise and move about. Perhaps it's all trick photography with a red filter over the lenses..... Click the post's title for more details.

Labels: places, weather

Why don't chain hotels in America have the same look and feel and amenities as they do in Europe?  Take the Fairfield Ramada in York, England.  Tea with scones, daily.  A remodeled 18th century stone building overlooking a river.  Fireplaces.  Six acres of land.  Meeting rooms, wireless access.  Rates starting around $100 a night.  Have you seen and/or priced Ramadas and/or Fairfield Inns here?!

Labels: places, travel

Stephen King and H.G. Wells today. Nice.

Also H.L. Mencken and Gustav Holst and Bill Murray. I wish one could actually make a great big - and accurate - theory about people who are born on the same day.

Labels: anniversaries

What's the deal with Facebook being down or painfully sluggish so much recently?

Labels: websites

The Nanny of New York (a/k/a Mayor Bloomberg) reportedly wants to ban smoking outdoors as well as in. Normblog has written a - presumably sarcastic - piece on same.

Labels: absurdities, blogs (others'), writing

A serialized online novel is about to begin in the U.K. Telegraph and/or your email box. The link will not be available until Monday, September 21, but here is a description of book one, and here is an interview with Alexander McCall Smith. And you can sign up here to receive each day's chapter in email.

Smith may well be the most prolific writer since pen and paper were invented. His several well-received, popular, clever and nicely written series comprise 20 books thus far, among them:
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (10 titles at present)
44 Scotland Street (5 titles at present)
Von Igelfield (1 title at present)
Sunday Philosophy Club (5 titles and my favorite)
Corduroy Mansions (the first weekly online series)
La's Orchestra Saves the World (10 printable pages)

Many thanks to Cornflower Books for writing about the new serialization as well as for her January 2009 interview with McCall Smith.

Labels: book blogs, books, writing

I was talking about the number 9 recently, influenced by 9-9-9 two weeks ago and by general fascination with numbers, and thought rare readers might enjoy this article on the subject. Aside from other things, it points out the lengths that one of its military leaders, Ne Win, went to in order to insinuate 9 into the fabric of the Burmese economy.

Labels: history, numbers, places

He did it! He ran 1,105 miles in the 51 days since July 26. Yesterday he ran back into London's Trafalgar Square, with blisters on his blisters, he said, to complete his goal. He'd eaten five or six thousand calories a day (!) and succeeded in raising nearly half a million dollars (but why wasn't it more?!) for Sport Relief. Sadly, few papers around the world have given this exercise (pun intended) any attention, but it's quite an achievement. Izzard noted that when he left on his journey, the only people in the Square were his own team but that yesterday there were hundreds of fans and well-wishers in spite of the rain. He said he hadn't trained much, in advance, and was not a marathon runner previously. He injured his ankles and toes, lost toenails, felt exhausted at the beginning, but as the days went on found that he ran more easily and felt good. Consider, however, that he ran 27 miles each day for 51 days. I suppose his whole body chemistry and make-up will be different after this. He's a funny, intelligent, engaging actor and comedian; apparently he's also an extraordinarily disciplined and determined human being.

Donations can be made at Comic Relief.

Labels: amazements, people of note

Granting that polite and gracious behavior is always more pleasant - not to mention polite and gracious, heh - nevertheless I wonder about our reactions to Serena Williams' outburst at the U.S. Open. It is certainly true that the ideal reaction of people in the public eye, whether glad or miserable, whether winning or losing, would be graciousness. A column in the NY Times puts it well and clearly (here). It is true, however, that many people kind of chuckle when men athletes (hockey players, baseball hitters, tennis players, etc.) freak out and throw things. People voice distaste for John McEnroe's antics but there's a vague sense of amusement in their reactions, too. But Serena's yelling was "so unseemly," as someone put it to me yesterday. Why? She had received a crucial call that stopped her momentum and was likely to wreck her game, and she was angry. Who on earth would not be furious? Furthermore, as video has since shown, she was correct!!!! It was a bad call!! She lost the match and the championship on a bad/wrong call and on her reaction to the bad/wrong call. Man oh man. Fortunately she has a successful career and many other victories to savor but this must be extremely frustrating.

It's almost 2010. Women have voted for 90 years, have had personal health protection for nearly that long, have been freed from being official property of fathers and husbands for almost 40 years . . . and yet women are still expected to smile and be polite, no matter what happens, and no matter that unrestrained reactions would be acceptable for men.

Labels: modern times, people of note

I stopped in Posman Books in Grand Central today, to see if they had anything by Charles Lamb now that I'm curious about him on account of The Guernsey Literary . . . Society. They didn't. What they did have was four people on line buying The Lost Symbol (see yesterday). Four people, four books. In the five minutes I was there. Do the math.

Labels: books

The blockbuster never dies. Richard Langdon is back. Janet Maslin has once again annointed Dan Brown a master of un-put-down-able fiction in her review of The Lost Symbol, much as she did when she nearly fell all over herself in delight over The DaVinci Code, calling it "riddle-filled, code-breaking, exhilaratingly brainy thriller."  I enjoyed "Angels and Demon" more, I have to say, and thought it was much better written - more subplotlines were finished and the characters were better developed.  The one that was specifically about coding was way too easy to solve, disappointingly, and made me think that either the NSA should put me on their payroll or Dan Brown isn't as fierce a code writer as he and others think.  Rumor has it that there are some nifty codes in The Lost Symbol so of course I will have to accept the challenge.  I'll let you know....

Labels: books, writing

It's raining in New York City - pouring, in fact - and is expected to rain and be gloomy all day. Which makes this the first day since and including the day itself that the color of the light and the quality of the air reflects the emotional atmosphere.

What a somber and difficult day. It's an occasion for serious quiet thought. But the more I have thought and learned in the last eight years, the less I have a clear sense of what reactions would be best personally, let alone any idea whatsoever of what would be best nationally or internationally. All I know is that I have hope that nothing like it will ever happen again to anyone for any reason.

Anger is understandable. Resentment is understandable. Passion for one's beliefs is understandable. Wanting to wreak revenge on those who have harmed loved ones is understandable. Intense feelings on all sides are understandable. But what about trying to listen and hear and work and live together? It *has* to be possible. It just has to be.

Labels: anniversaries, ideas

Just finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (well, listening to the audio book) and I want to say that I enjoyed it very much. I kept hearing about it and seeing people buying it so I read the descriptions on B&N and Amazon. I was concerned that it would be awfully cute and romancy and it is a bit of both but it's also startling and often quite wonderful.

One remarkable feat of the book is its casual and friendly interweaving of serious literature into a story that isn't particularly intellectual. The members of the eponymous literary society - whose origins I will not reveal because it's one of the early surprises in the story - have a (perhaps not entirely believable - to me, anyway) passion for authors like Charles Lamb and Seneca which makes for delicious quotations and references.

And the well-researched historical details are enthralling. For example, I knew the Guernseys were occupied by the Naziis during WWII but I had no idea it was for so long (nearly six years) nor how vicious. Obviously I knew Naziis were extraordinarily cruel as a rule but I'd always thought their island outposts were relatively quiet as far as that went. Some of the random and utterly casual cruelties described here are beyond astonishing.

The vivid descriptions of the geography and the air on the island make me want little more than to go there right now and walk along the cliffs and beaches.

And if the characters in the book are even remotely like actual islanders, then that is yet another reason for a nice long visit.

My only quarrel with the book is that once the last quarter begins, all the historical and literary threads pretty much disappear into a not-unexpected winding-down and ending.

Labels: books, places, writing

Ellen de Generes? Huh?

Labels: ai, music, tv

Don't forget to take note and maybe even smile four times today. At 9:00 and 9:09 a.m. and 9:00 and 9:09 p.m. today. To be precise, that's at 9 on 9/9/9 or 9:09 on 9/9/09. And we can celebrate this evening again at 9:09.09 on 9/09/09. And today, for once, both d/m/y and m/d/y fans are on in sync. Cool.

Labels: fun, numbers

September 14-18 is Book Blogger Week. Click the "Celebrate Books" poster under the photo on the left of the page (or here) for a list of nominees for various praise. Also, here are some book blogs I frequent (which will no doubt be expanded within a short time with the addition of the some of the nominees).

austen blog bluestocking society book beast book ninja bookclub girl booked out the bookseller bookslut care's online book club confessions of an idiosyncratic mind cornflower books

diamond in the window diary of a heretic edog eurocrime eurocrime competitions jenny davidson john baker kids lit library thing moorish girl

lost in a good story paperback writer rarely likable roger simon semicolon small world reads so many books thoughts of joy upper fort stewart the rap sheet twiga's book reviews

Labels: book blogs, books, writing

Nicholas Winton. Do not let his name go unremembered. He is personally responsible for saving nearly 700 children's lives. Now over 100 years old, he proves that one person can make an incalculable and wonderful difference. (H/T London Telegraph article)

Yesterday, the "Winton Train" arrived in London, having recreated the trip that the rescuing trains took from Prague to the North Sea and then to London. The passengers on the anniversary train included some of the original passengers as well as their families.

On 1 September 2009, a special "Winton train" set off from the Prague Main railway station. The train, consisting of an original locomotive and carriages used in the 1930s, headed to London via the original Kindertransport route. On board the train were several surviving "Winton children" and their descendants, who were welcomed by Sir Nicholas in London. The occasion marked the 70th anniversary of the intended last Kindertransport which was due to set off on 1 September 1939 but never did because of the outbreak of the Second World War. At the train's departure, Sir Nicholas Winton's statue was unveiled at the railway station.

It's dreadful to separate families but many if not most of these children would have died in eastern Europe had English generosity in accepting so many children not have been there. In fact, apparently none of their family members survived.

And now there are over five thousand descendants of the children who came to England on the Kindertransport. People who would not have existed were it not for Nicky Winton and his trains. It shows that things can be done and that there are good people.

England itself deserves credit, too. Winton must have possessed remarkable powers of persuasion but England deserves enormous credit for being persuadable.

(Side note. I do not believe that people would buy fewer magazines and newspapers nor watch less televised coverage of it, were the world's media to spend less time blaring photos and words about celebrities who push white powder up their noses or down their throats, or dress scantily, or shop a lot, than writing about thoughtful and extraordinary people like Nicholas Winton. Do you?)

Labels: anniversaries, people of note, u.k.

Realizing as I do that Miss Marple adventures can be awfully precious, nonetheless I often like them, particularly second and third times as sort of background noise when I can notice details about scenery and/or actors. I am not a fan of Joan Hickson's characterization as she is much too gray, in all the possible interpretations of that word. I do like Geraldine McEwan's portrayal, however. She conveys a sense of humor in the role, suggesting that the character, not the actress, knows that people's first reaction to her is that she must be a silly old lady - and letting the people - the characters, not the actors and not the audience - come to understand and appreciate her as time goes on. In particular, the later episodes with McEwan were interesting and fun to watch. McEwan is the voice of Miss Thripp in several Wallace and Gromit films, too, by the way.

Labels: actors, tv

Laura points out that Claude Rains is TCM's September "star of the month" (read her post here and see the Rains listings here - click "refresh" when you go to the TCM schedule - they have yet to do something to juice up their slow-loading pages but refreshing it quickly seems to help). Unfortunately they're not showing all that many so most of the films have been seen often on TCM, but he is wonderful.

Labels: actors, movies

Both of t2cgitw began kindergarten yesterday. I am at a complete loss to understand how time has flown so quickly that they are old enough to begin "real" school. As I've said before and will no doubt bore myself and others by saying many times again, I cannot remember life without them and yet paradoxically it also feels as if they were born mere moments ago. Anyway, email and photos attest to them taking it all completely in calm stride, riding their buses quite happily and altogether enjoying the day. Mothers and fathers made it through the day well, too. Can book reports and mid-terms and science fairs and all the rest be far behind?

Labels: children, events, school, t2cgitw

There is no end to the horror and terror that the vile kidnappers wrought on the Dugard family. Jaycee Dugard herself must have such a complex web of joy and guilt and sadness to work through, feelings and experiences that no one should ever have to deal with. And her parents must be unbelievably happy and yet also agonized because they know that enormous difficulties lie ahead. It's not as if adult parent-daughter relationships always run smoothly in the best of circumstances, after all. But today I realized a twist no one has mentioned among the unfathomable adjustments that the Dugard family faces.

It occurred to me that another piece to all this, something bursting with both unbelievable joy and unimaginable horror, is that Jaycee Dugard's mother now has two granddaughters.

As I can personally attest three times over, there is hardly anything as wonderful or joyous as grandchildren. But what if your grandchildren are also the children of the man who kidnapped, injured and held your own child for nearly two decades? What if the two girls you love so much are also the living breathing embodiments of dreadful things done to your daughter? And are not only reminders every single moment of every single day but also have their own gruesome history? One hopes that one's grandchildren's father will be someone you can love, respect and appreciate. But in this case it's like a wildly distorted and warped version of a good news / bad news joke because the girls would not even exist were it not for the monster who kidnapped their mother. In fact, it's such an astonishing set of events and pretzel-like interlocking connections that it's almost impossible to describe. So how can they all come to terms with everything? Are people that resilient? Is love and the desire to love strong enough? Can time close the wounds enough so everyone can move beyond the rage and pain, the extraordinary confusion and sense of being completely overwhelmed?

Labels: family, relationships