Musings

General-purpose musings

There are 780 posts filed in Musings (this is page 49 of 78).

Monuments

At the State Capitol during today’s Bugfest festival some kids were clambering up the war memorial to get a better look at one of the exhibits. A dour, overweight man walked up to the monument and commanded them to come down.

“Its disrespectful,” he scolded as the kids meekly climbed down.

As I thought about the men and women the monument was honoring, I knew the man had it wrong. These brave souls wouldn’t mind kids playing on the monument. In fact, they would love to watch them play. So many of them were just kids themselves when they died, and so many left their own kids without a father or mother that the last thing they would want is for someone to take a kid’s fun away. And what could make a better monument to peace than a child’s laughter?

I paused a moment for those fellow veterans, sadly shook my head, and then chased my cackling, gleeful children for all it was worth.

Citizenship as a privilege

So Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell aired his racist thoughts in Sunday’s N&O story on illegal immigrants, then had to issue an apology. The debate shows that racism is alive and well in the Old North State.

I’ve got this citizenship thing figured out. Since almost everyone calling to deport undocumented immigrants did nothing more to become citizens other than being born here, I propose we make everyone take a citizenship test to be considered a citizen.

Let’s make it mandatory at age 18, like signing up for the draft, and maybe even make it expire like a driver license. If you can’t pass the citizenship test you become undocumented and subject to immediate deportation.

I’ll bet that four out of five forum posters at the N&O and WRAL story sites above would be packing their bags.

(For the record, I took the MSNBC citizenship test and scored a perfect 100%. You kids get off of my country!)

Atari and the suits in the record industry

My friend Chris O’Donnell linked to a wonderful online history of the Atari company, makers of the first wildly-popular home video games. It tells of how Nolan Bushnell, Silicon Valley legend and founder of Atari, sold the company to Warner Communications and then regretted the move when he was forced out. Warner went on to squeeze billions of dollars out of Atari but also squeezed the creativity out of it too, chiefly by not giving game developers a cut of their creations’ huge profits.
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Lighting Raiders


While I was learning how to stuff video onto our new iPod I practiced with my Raiders Of The Lost Ark DVD. After repeatedly watching the opening sequence, I noticed something I hadn’t appreciated before in the 27 years (!) the film has been out: the lighting is outstanding! In the opening scene, Indiana Jones goes from deep into the jungle and into the dark tomb, then gets chased out by the boulder and races to the river to escape. There are so many scenes here with challenging lighting yet every one is perfect. The lighting practically tells the story itself.

Raiders cinematographer Douglas Slocombe is said to have never used a light meter on the Raiders set. How is it this man never won an Oscar?

N&O shrinks staff yet again

Last weekend I couldn’t help but notice the Lowe’s sales circular which normally arrives in the Sunday paper came instead by First Class mail. I don’t know if Lowe’s wanted to put it in the hands of its customers earlier to take advantage of the Labor Day weekend or if Lowe’s simply didn’t find the News and Observer up to the task. Either way, that’s revenue the N&O would’ve banked but didn’t.

Decisions like Lowe’s don’t bode well for the N&O, as yesterday the beleaguered paper announced more buyout packages in an effort to reduce staff (I was going to say “headcount,” but they’re people, dammit). I wonder if McClatchy’s 2006 decision to buy Knight Ridder seems so prudent in the face of today’s economy.

Shrinking product or no, I still enjoy my morning paper and I hope things settle down there soon.

Waiting on, waiting for

Kelly and I chuckled when we saw the N&O’s headline this weekend: “New Orleans not waiting on Gustav.”

Waiting on? Did New Orleans take a job waiting tables? Maybe NOLA is in the weeds, had a few big parties seated all at once and needs another server to help out, so that’s why Gustav isn’t being waited on. Then again, maybe the N&O’s editor meant to write “waiting for Gustav,” which would make so much more sense, grammatically-speaking.

(See what happens when one marries an editor?)

Sneeze season has begun

Yesterday was the first day of school and this morning I’m on my way to a full-blown cold. Coincidence?