Robert Wilonsky: Fully Loaded
Dallas Observer film critic Robert Wilonsky:To damn Herbie: Fully Loaded as soporific crap, as lazy profiteering, as yet another needless and cynical remake in a season populated by such con artists, would be as pointless as the movie itself. If you had any hope for it, you're either a Walt Disney executive or Gordon Buford, author of the story "Car-Boy-Girl" that birthed five prior features, including 1969's The Love Bug and the 1997 made-for-TV redo with Bruce Campbell in the Dean Jones role, and a short-lived TV series.
I've seen Fully Loaded recently with my kids, and the idea it's being subjected to serious criticism cracks me up.
I'd like to know who Wilonsky envisioned as the readership of that review. Does he think Observer readers debated between seeing the sixth Herbie film and drinking their way up and down Greeneville Avenue?
When I saw the film, kids adored Herbie for the same reason I loved it as a kid, the same reason my grandkids will love another Herbie remake in 20 years -- a beaten-up Volkswagen comes to life, surprising its hard-luck owner! Hilarity ensues! A lovable mechanic makes him new again! The car squirts oil on a dastardly villain! He wins a race just when you thought he was going to lose!
Expecting Disney to deviate from this formula is like going to Hamlet and hoping for a happy ending.
I wrote briefly for the Observer in the late '80s, though I don't think I met Wilonsky. I'm concerned for him. No one on the far side of 35 should be able to offer an informed opinion on the relative quality of Lindsey Lohan's three Disney films.
Political Site Slow to Disclose Credit Card Theft
There's an ongoing dispute between the right-wing group ProtestWarrior and a left-wing "hacktivist" accused of breaking in to their servers and accessing the credit card information of 5,000 customers of the group's online store.While that allegation is under investigation (no charges have been filed), ProtestWarrior makes an unusual admission: They discovered the possible theft of customer credit cards in February, but didn't tell any customers until July 5.
The reason we haven't made this announcement earlier is that our customers were already protected and we didn't want to jeopardize the ongoing FBI investigation of Jeremy and his "hacktivist" army.
ProtestWarrior customers weren't protected. They've had no chance to cancel their cards or check bills for fraudulent charges. Making matters worse, many credit card providers only let you challenge a charge for 60 days.
Additionally, any ProtestWarrior customers in California must be informed personally of this security breach under a credit card disclosure law passed in 2003. Failure to do so exposes a merchant to civil liability for damages.
Poker? I Barely Know Her
I'm not much of a Texas Holdem poker player, which I blame on my obsession with the slang terms for different hands. I'd rather draw a well-named hand than a winning one.Yesterday I was trying to explain to my wife why a six and nine of the same suit, "6-9 suited," is called a prom night. She wasn't getting it at all, even when I offered to draw a picture.
While playing last week with a poker fanatic brother-in-law, we began discussing athletes on my junior high basketball team who quit to become cheerleaders.
When I told him their reason -- they did it to spend more time around female cheerleaders -- the look on his face matched the one Ross got on Friends when he repeated his parents' claim that the family dog had been sent off to a farm.
My in-law's skepticism led to the coining of a new poker term for a hand that's not-quite-straight, with four cards in sequence.
I hope this doesn't get back to my old teammates at Pauline G. Hughes Middle School in Burleson, Texas, but we're calling it a male cheerleader.
President George H.W. Bush in a 1999 speech:The defenders of Bush's leaky brain are getting desperate:We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country.
Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.
My only comfort is that probably about 80% or more of the American people don't know who Karl Rove is. And probably 90% or even more don't know who Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are. Remember, only about 20-25% can name even one Supreme Court [justice].
This was written by Betsy Newmark, an Advanced Placement teacher of U.S. government and politics at a North Carolina high school.
How many Americans knew Archibald Cox's name in 1973, teach?
Infantryman Randy Cadenhead in Iraq
One of at least two Cadenheads serving in Iraq, infantryman Spc. Randy Cadenhead, turned up in an interesting Iraq Pictures weblog. I don't know him personally, but I suspect one of the genealogists in the family could show me that we're fourth or fifth cousins.I've yet to hear from a Cadenhead who wasn't related to me, including one in Houston who hoped we weren't kin because of something I published on the web.
Simple Syndication in Communist China
While researching the skateboard jump over the Great Wall of China, I found RSS in an unusual place: The English language edition of People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, offers 18 RSS 2.0 newsfeeds.In addition to feeds on current events in news, business, sports, and other areas, the paper devotes feeds to party leaders such as Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.
Outside observers of China often look to People's Daily for clues about the inner workings of the government, as described in Wikipedia:
Newspaper articles in the People's Daily are often not read for content, so much as placement. A large number of articles devoted to a political figure or idea is often taken as a sign that that official is rising.
In addition, editorials in the People's Daily are also still regarded as fairly authoritative statements of government policy.
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