Christian Slater: Threat or Menace?

My friend and fellow boobtube connoisseur Jonathan Bourne has posted his Television Death Pool predictions, split into two parts like a very special episode of Blossom. Here's his list, ordered from most to least likely cancellation:

• ER (NBC)
• Life on Mars (ABC)
• My Own Worst Enemy (NBC)
• Do Not Disturb (Fox)
• The Mentalist (CBS)
• 90210 (CW)
• Opportunity Knocks (ABC)
• Knight Rider (NBC)
• Worst Week Ever (NBC)
• Gary Unmarried (CBS)

I'm kicking myself for not picking Do Not Disturb. I watched the sitcom's pilot last week, and I agree with the assessment of Chicago Tribune TV critic Maureen Ryan: "It made my soul vomit."

Bourne and I disagree on My Own Worst Enemy, the new drama that answers the question "whatever happened to Christian Slater?":

One way to try to get viewers to tune in to a program is to put a star in it. But does Christian Slater count as a star? I think Slater's paycheck is this show's worst enemy. Because if this program doesn't get huge ratings right off the bat, the bean counters are going to look at the bottom line and determine that this show is too expensive because of the money they shelled out for Slater.

I'm having trouble with the show's premise -- Slater plays a dull white collar guy in the 'burbs who doesn't realize he's also a bad-ass international spy. How could you not figure out something like that? Wouldn't you wake up one morning in leopard-skin underwear instead of your tighty-whities, smelling of explosives and gunpowder, and wonder what the hell happened the previous night?

But in spite of that, I can't bet against the star of Heathers, the last dark comedy about school violence that's ever likely to be made.

Television · 2008/09/17 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Game Designer Rob Heinsoo Meets Roy G. Biv

Until 2006 I was colorblind. Show me a sunset and I saw shades of green. Hand me a pink shirt and I was sure it was grey. Before my first date with Lisa, my future wife, I gave her my address and described my house as the gray house on the corner. The only gray house on a corner anywhere in the neighborhood belonged to the local drug dealers, which she realized when they opened the door and called inside to see if there was a 'Rob' sprawled somewhere in the haze. Lisa said "Uh, sorry, I've got the wrong house," backed up and found me in the blue house on the corner.

On February 8, 2006, I sat at home typing Dreamblade notes on my laptop computer while Lisa went to hear a National Geographic lecture with her mom. As usual, I had Windows Media Player humming along playing music. I liked having the Alchemy visualizer twirling colors around at the side of the screen while I worked. Suddenly ...

The story makes possible this great oh snap! insult from one of Heinsoo's readers: "If you were still colorblind, you'd have an excuse for using this format for your pages. The color scheme makes me wish I were colorblind."

Gaming · 2008/09/17 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Ron Paul Absent from Financial Crisis Coverage

I found myself wondering today why Ron Paul has been completely absent from media coverage of the Merrill Lynch sale and Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Paul, more than any other candidate for president this year, made an issue of the government's management of the economy and how he believes we're being led off a cliff. He would no doubt have a lot to say, given his remarks in May against proposed House bills to bail out mortgage lenders:

It is neither morally right nor fiscally wise to socialize private losses in this way.

The solution is for government to stop micromanaging the economy and let the market adjust, as painful as that will be for some. We should not force taxpayers, including renters and more frugal homeowners, to switch places with the speculators and take on those same risks that bankrupted them. It is a terrible idea to spread the financial crisis any wider or deeper than it already is, and to prolong the agony years into the future. Socializing the losses now will only create more unintended consequences that will give new excuses for further government interventions in the future. This is how government grows - by claiming to correct the mistakes it earlier created, all the while constantly shaking down the taxpayer. The market needs a chance to correct itself, and Congress needs to avoid making the situation worse by pretending to ride to the rescue.

In a search of Google News, I could find no evidence that Paul has been interviewed about the current financial crisis. I did find a speech he made on the floor of the House of Representatives in March.

The text of his speech also is online.

Politics · Journalism · 2008/09/16 · Comment · Link

Hurricane Ike Poised to Strike Galveston

Hurricane Ike is going to kill a lot of people who don't evacuate Galveston and the surrounding Texas coast before it strikes tonight. I just heard a disturbing report on MSNBC that disabled residents have yet to be evacuated and can't reach emergency authorities on the phone. Weather Underground Jeff Masters offers this grim assessment:

Hurricane Ike is closing in on Texas, and stands poised to become one of the most damaging hurricanes of all time. Despite Ike's rated Category 2 strength, the hurricane is much larger and more powerful than Category 5 Katrina or Category 5 Rita. The storm surge from Ike could rival Katrina's, inundating a 200-mile stretch of coast from Galveston to Cameron, Louisiana with waters over 15 feet high. ... Ike continues to grow larger and has intensified slightly since yesterday, and the hurricane's Integrated Kinetic Energy has increased from 134 to 149 Terajoules. This is 30% higher than Katrina's total energy at landfall. All this extra energy has gone into piling up a vast storm surge that will probably be higher than anything in recorded history along the Texas coast. Storm surge heights of 20-25 feet are possible from Galveston northwards to the Louisiana border.

We helped talk some relatives into evacuating Houston. The last massive storm to strike Galveston, the 1900 hurricane, killed from 6,000 to 12,000 residents -- one third of the town's population -- and rewrote Texas history. Before the storm, Galveston was the largest cotton port in the U.S. and one of the state's largest economic centers, home to 18 different newspapers. Afterward, Houston took its place.

Weather · Texas · 2008/09/12 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Feelin' Glum? Cheer Up with Beech-Nut Gum

An old black-and-white hepcat commercial for Beech-Nut Gum made me curious if the gum -- available in five flavors including Chlorophyll "for the breath" -- is still being sold anywhere.

Hometown Favorites, an online store that sells 2,000 well-known old-time products that are difficult to find today in stores, claims that Beech-Nut Spearmint and Wintergreen Gum is no longer being made. Beechies are available in spearmint and peppermint.

Shopping · 2008/09/11 · 11 COMMENTS · Link

North Carolina Also Bills Rape Victims for Evidence

Wasilla, Alaska, isn't the only place that has charged rape victims for the cost of evidence to prosecute their attackers. Minnesota Public Radio's News Cut blog finds that North Carolina followed the same policy as Sarah Palin's town during her term as mayor:

Last winter, the Raleigh News & Observer in North Carolina uncovered a similar policy on a statewide basis.

The vast majority of the 3,000 or so emergency room patients examined for sexual assaults each year shoulder some of the cost of a rape kit test, according to state records and victim advocates. For some, it's as little as a $50 insurance co-payment. For those without insurance, it's hundreds of dollars left when a state program designed to help reaches its limit.

Apparently, the practice is more common than most people think. said Ilse Knecht, deputy director of public policy at the National Center for Victims of Crime in an interview with U.S. News & World Report. "We've heard so many stories of victims paying for their exams, or not being able to and then creditors coming after them."

"The bottom line is these services cost money," Rebecca Andrews, a hospital's vice president of finance told the paper. "We do sometimes forgive. It's case by case. But where do you stop? We treat gunshot wounds, stabbings, abused children. No one asked for that to happen."

"I couldn't believe they would send me a bill for this," a rape victim from Pittsboro, N.C., told the News & Observer. "I didn't ask for this to happen. The whole point of me going was to get evidence for the case."

According to News Cut, Barack Obama sponsored a 2001 bill in the Illinois State Legislature to ensure that rape victims in the state were reimbursed for "out-of-pocket medical expenses, loss of earnings, psychological counseling, and loss of support income due to the crime."

A lot of issues that crop up during the heat of a presidential campaign fade into obscurity after they're politically played out. This one shouldn't. Any place in the U.S. that bills rape victims for the cost of collecting evidence should be made to answer for the practice, which manages to be both cruel to victims and soft on crime. How many rapists evade justice because their victims refused treatment to avoid an expensive medical bill? How many rape victims suffer damaged credit because they couldn't pay this bill?

Politics · 2008/09/11 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Under Palin, Wasilla Charged Rape Victims for Evidence Kits

During the first four years that Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the town's police department charged women who had been raped with the cost of "rape kits," the $300 to $1,200 exams necessary to collect evidence of the sex assault. A May 20, 2000, article in The Frontiersman, Wasilla's hometown newspaper, provides the details:

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victim's insurance company when possible. I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.

According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.

Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said.

The policy was changed by an Alaskan state law that was written specifically to prevent Wasilla from continuing to charge women for the evidence necessary to prosecute their attackers, according to the bill's author Eric Croft (D-Anchorage).

Since 1976, Alaska has ranked every year in the top five for rapes, with a rate currently 2.2 times the national average, according to the state's Health and Social Services department.

In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, Palin said that she opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

The candidates were pressed on their stances on abortion and were even asked what they would do if their own daughters were raped and became pregnant.

Palin said she would support abortion only if the mother's life was in danger. When it came to her daughter, she said, "I would choose life."

Update: "It was more than a couple of cases, and it was standard practice in Wasilla," Peggy Wilcox of the Alaska Public Employees Association told USA Today for a story filed Thursday morning on this policy. "If you were raped in Wasilla, this was going to happen to you."

Politics · 2008/09/10 · 52 COMMENTS · Link

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