I can’t argue about the numbers part. Technology is evil in many ways. There is no arguing it.  And all this “virtual” social media stuff can’t be too good for us either. But really? Prince you are living in a bubble. you need to get out more.

John promises Savannah he’ll be back in a year. Then 9/11 happens. Much to her dismay he  re-ups for duty in Afghanistan. They write each other to stay in touch. Hence the “Dear John” title.

This film centers around themes that are close to the hearts of myself and my fellow viewers (my daughter and wife). We all identified with John’s motivations, namely his loyalty to his ailing father (the back story), his relationship orientation, his duty to country. A man’s man on the outside, a heart of gold beneath the armor. My wife and daughter teared up more than once.

It doesn’t hurt that Tatum has noteworthy screen presence. I can’t think of anyone like him in Hollywood currently. His stature, poise, iron jaw line, and piercing eyes make the Colin Ferrells and Matt Damons of Hollywood look ordinary. Tatum plays the role of an all American boy soldier very well. He’s got range. He also played the role of a hip hop dancer to perfection in Step Up. [Did you know he is a former exotic dancer?]

Overall the plot works in an  “Officer and Gentlemen” sort of way. There are a few notable moments such as when John returns to the states to find the love of his life has married another man. Unfortunately though, there is little in the way of suspense. In fact it’s not a dynamic movie at all despite the cutaways to handheld-shot  combat scenes. Instead it’s more-less a patchwork of vignettes that are glued together with fade in and fade outs to form a video diary of sorts (Notebook anyone?).

Dear John plays like a Lifetime movie, replete with piano arpeggios and swelling string movements. Throw in some other staple cinematic conflicts  ( soldier torn between duty to country and love interest; father and son have decades-old/unspoken/unresolved baggage; woman torn between competing love interests) and you have a tear-jerker of a movie, even if it doesn’t flow exceptionally well.

Overall I liked it. The acting  is good, the photography offers some great compositions, and it’s  entertaining–although perhaps a little monotone and cliche-ridden for my taste. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Spoiler alert (do not read if you haven’t seen it). He gets the girl at the very end .. but only because the writer efficiently writes out her new  husband with a bout of life-ending cancer (which conveniently reaches critical mass just as the soldier returns from war in Iraq).

This is my third annual Independence Day post here on Joe Sac. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about independence for the past several days, and I have been asking myself: What does it mean to “fit in”? Is that where you never obstruct the flow, never question status quo, and never share what ya know? Sounds kinda Orwellian, doesn’t it?  Animal Farmish even. “Fitting out” is SO much more sexy. Look at Lady Gaga!

I’ve always been a bit of a non conformist. The other day I said to a long time friend, ” I don’t fit in here.” He  shot back, “You  never fit in anywhere.”  True. =) It’s not for lack of trying though. I have tried to fit in, but every time I start fading into the woodwork and just going with the flow I am once again drawn out for one reason or another. It’s in my nature.

Fortunately (for those poor people who have to live with me), I have learned to channel my energy through different mediums of expression… blogging, making music, writing, etc. I see this blog as a kind of synthesizer whereby I take  parts and combine them into a whole. Kinda-ish.

Wow it has been over two years since I launched this blog. 27 months to be exact. I have  unloaded a lot of spare mental change here. For those who continue to visit, thanks for reading me. I keep thinking I will run out of things to say but behold, there is always at least a couple things a week I am compelled to write about. I don’t plan it, I don’t map it out, I don’t deliberate it. I just do it.

For me, that is the spirit of independence: doing what YOU want to do .. when and how and where YOU want to do it (within reason of course).

It’s all mental.

Still, achieving an independent mindset never came easy for me. I don’t know where or when it started, but at some point when I was young I started  caring far too much about  people’s opinions–especially the negative ones. :\ It’s taken me quite a few years to unravel that mental yarn, but hopefully I have made some good progress in the past four or five years.

I think a high percentage of people suffer from the same affliction. It’s not our fault, though. It’s our culture. We live in a very image-obsessed, materialistic  culture where “success” is routinely measured by the number of decimal points in one’s “net worth.” In an effort to “keep with the Joneses” people get into a self-destructive pattern of comparing. Sometimes they never break the pattern and  thus never truly reach their full potential. I find that tragic.

It’s all mentality.

I have learned the most effective way to ruin one’s  quest for independence and happiness is to surround oneself with negative or cynical people. Truly, if you want to sell yourself short, that’s probably the best way to do it… particularly if you are an approval seeker… i.e. someone who has a proclivity for co dependence.

I was naive for a long time. I always tried to see the best in people. I was shocked to learn negative and cynical people will deliberately withhold compliments, dismiss others’ ambitions as whimsical and delusional, “top” everything  one says, and happily deliver a passive aggressive brand of cynicism designed to keep a less assertive person from getting too “uppity” as long as the person will tolerate it.  Hence the “misery loves company” adage. Thing is, many of these miserable people don’t even know what they are doing. Hence the “Lord forgive them for they know not what they do” adage. =)

Fortunately, those who are oblivious to the damage they are causing can often be led to the light of reason with some delicate nudging (or a blast of humiliation at the right time); however, others– the ones who know exactly what they are doing–will laugh hysterically at the notion they are insensitive or cantankerous.  “I am not insensitive!” they will protest, “YOU just need to grow some thicker skin!!”  Rush Limbaugh strikes me as such a person. I observe many like him on  discussion forums around the web–especially on SacBee.com’s. Yikes.

How do you know if one of these angry little snappers are contaminating your water?  The next time the person you suspect tops you, dismisses you, snorts at your stupidity, gets laughs at your expense in front of others, puts you down, makes fun of something you share, etc etc etc etc call them out on it. Be perfectly blunt and say “I don’t appreciate that comment. If you can’t say something positive or sincerely constructive, then please don’t comment at all.”  If they come back with the proverbial “Wow you are defensive!” then shoot back with “No you are just being flippant and insensitive.”

What happens next will determine what kind of person they are.If they don’t immediately apologize and acknowledge the hurt they might have caused, you know, show some compassion and personal accountability for their actions,  then you MIGHT  have one on the hook. My advice: Throw it back. Piranhas don’t make good friends. Snap! Snap!

I prefer dolphins myself. Docile, graceful, smooth, and of course spectacular jumpers. I gravitate towards such people. They are getting rarer and rarer in this world, but they are still out there. When I find them I keep them close by. And I’m not talking about “yes men.” I love constructive criticism. I thrive on it.  I’m simply talking about people who practice BUILDING PEOPLE UP, not TEARING PEOPLE DOWN.

So this independence Day I send much love and respect out to all the people in the world who CHOOSE to “fit out” rather than “fit in.”  That is, those who choose to take the road less traveled and serve generously and without expectation of recompense  in the lives of those around them.

For every person out there who is encouraging, optimistic, who understands love is an act of GIVING not receiving.. for everyone who brings out the absolute best in people rather than their worst…. I say THANK YOU. It takes courage,  humility, and an independent mentality to be a force for good in this world. I am blessed to have such people in my life… leading me to the light with the great example they set. I’ll keep learning .. independently… 

Happy Independence Day everyone.

Craig’s List time. I found a guy who does lawnmower repair in the downtown area. My wife and I took a trip to see him yesterday. As we approached the motel where he lives we spotted a mattress someone been positioned against a telephone pole. Apparently they thought it would make a good billboard and had spray-painted the words “Don’t Quit Now” on it.

My wife conjectured the arrows on the sign must denote directions. She said the mattress was probably the last sign in a series to help people navigate to a garage sale. Only a serial garage sailer like my wife could have solved that one so quickly (seriously, she goes totally Russian on the weekends—-maybe it’s my part-Russian blood she has acquired through osmosis?).

“So basically  ‘don’t quit now’ is another way to say ‘continue ahead to garage sale’?” I asked her.

“In that person’s mind yes,” she shot back without missing a beat. God I love her.

Ot maybe it was my Spiritual message for the day. I see them everywhere when I am looking.

So we find the motel, and our lawnmower man (who lives in one of the rooms). He is in his forties or fifties and looks homeless. His clothes are soiled from top to bottom. He is gaunt. He reeks like stale beer and cigarettes. His leathery skin is wrinkled deeply as though it had been exposed to the elements a lot.  He  is missing most of his teeth.

But what he lacked in aesthetics he more than made up for in congeniality. He greeted us with a disarming smile and handshake like we were old friends. He and I then lifted  the lawnmower out of our old SUV and he quickly rolled it over to his little corner of the world, where he went right to work on it. I swear he had the carburetor almost completely disassembled in two minutes flat. Total prodigy.

As my wife and I stood in the motel corridor as he worked (see pic left) some dormant memories of my childhood sprang to life. I think it was the combination of the motel and the smell of fuel that triggered them. Time for some customary Joe Sac digression!

I was blessed to grow up in one of the world’s most beautiful recreation areas  so my childhood was replete with  riding/racing off-road motorcycles and BMX bikes. These hobbies required constant maintenance and mechanical ingenuity though– neither of which I have ever possessed (although I could have won a wrench-chucking contest).

Don’t misconstrue me though.  I wasn’t spoiled. Quite the contrary. Our dear mom worked at McDonald’s, and our dad worked at a gas station. They lived paycheck to paycheck but still managed to keep a roof over our heads God love them.

Our house was located in lower income part of town and it was situated between trailer parks, low income apartments, section 8 homes, and tiny log cabins used as vacation rentals. In fact that is how I became childhood friends with Shaun Palmer (of X Games fame) . He lived a few streets over from me.

One day my friends and I were taking jumps at a dirt track we made in the forest when this skinny little guy with long, scraggly hair shows up, takes off down the trail we made, hits our jump at a speed none of us could have fathomed, does the most graceful 360 helicopter I had ever seen, then casually rides up to us and between smacks of gum  chirps, “cool jump.”

Palmer.

Anyway, as a bike and motorcycle enthusiast I needed money for both parts and repairs, and my parents didn’t have any dough to spare.  So the day after I turned 13 years old I forged a work permit (lying about my age) and landed a job as a maid at a local motel. I first I was excited. By the end of the first day not so much.

It was a dirty, thankless job. I saw stuff that a 13 year old boy should never see. I learned at a very young age how unthankful, ungrateful, and downright nasty some people live–especially those with obscene amounts of money. I also learned how back-breaking maid work is  and to this day have immense appreciation for those who have to do it to get by. All of my co workers were Mexican women. They were the kindest people I had ever met and treated me like family. They also teased me incessantly. I learned the word “gringo” and a whole bunch of other Spanish words.. words I used on my friends constantly much to their dismay..

Despite the dirty nature of my maid job, it enabled me to support my hobbies. I was lucky to have a few mechanically oriented friends (and their dads)  in my midst growing up. I was always in awe of them. Perhaps this  is why I’ve always also had an immense appreciation  for people who tear engines apart like they are Lego projects. I can barely disassemble a broom. :O

As my daydreams faded back into the abyss of my mind I refocused on the lawnmower man in front of us, who systematically twisted  screws, ratcheted bolts, inspected parts with a keen eye, blew into little jets to unclog them, scowled a few times, smiled a few times,  and then threw it all back together like it was nothing.

“Start ‘er up!” he motioned to me.

Pull. Pull. And  then vroooooOOOOOM!

“All set!!” he declared with a proud grin over the roar of our resurrected Toro lawnmower. He grinned even wider when we paid our bill. A good day for the lawnmower man. A good day for us. I love win-wins.

As we loaded the lawnmower back into our vehicle I asked our prodigy mechanic how long he had been fixing engines. Since he was five, he said. “I grew up in the shop,” he beamed proudly.

Who knows how he ended up in a seedy motel in a bad part of town. Who cares. Despite some obvious life challenges, he’s still going strong. Still working, still showing his kind heart, still finding a way to smile and make a positive contribution to society.

I’m always inspired when I meet people who have overcome untold challenges in life.  It’s always a cold shower reality check. These days we Americans are always moaning and groaning about what  we DON’T have. Spending some time with people like lawnmower man is a great way to appreciate all the blessings you DO have in your life.. and great opportunity to put some money in the pocket of someone who truly will appreciate it.

A saying comes to mind:  “If you can’t be content with what you have received, at least be thankful for what you have escaped.”

I have to say, I have met the most amazing people through Craig’s List. Several of them have saved my non-mechanical butt a ton of money and time. God bless those who do the jobs the rest of us won’t.. or can’t

I don’t blame the trolls. If anything I pity them. I blame their  enablers…  like the Sacramento Bee. I want some true change I can believe in. I want all media web sites to begin banning character assassins. I want media sites that work for everyone. I want progress. War is getting us nowhere.

Recently a panel of media experts met at Sacramento Bee to discuss “pay walls.” News content providers are struggling to turn a profit in the age of Huffpo and this was more-less a forum to exchange ideas and experiences. Personally I think they are getting ahead of themselves. To me their content is of marginal value while it is being sabotaged by trolls whose only purpose for patronizing them is to condemn and vilify their brothers and sisters for personal satisfaction.

Oh yeah I should give you some background. If you are new to my site I should tell you I believe we’re all brothers and sisters. I think we all come from the same seed. As such I think we have an obligation to treat each other with a high degree of respect, regardless of the topic we are debating. It’s called COMMON DECENCY. Granted, it’s a concept that has escaped many bigots, sexists, and criminals throughout the ages, but it’s been around since man became civilized, and it’s still every bit as critical to the health and welfare of the common good, societal order, growth, evolution, and good old human decency as it was back in the bronze age.

As stewards of the common good, I am of the firm belief we all have an acute responsibility to protect our public airwaves  from the reach of pirates. We work together in neighborhood associations and other groups to keep our children safe from thugs on the street, yet we don’t work together to keep them safe from thugs on the net.

Why the double standard? I don’t care if it’s porn, spoofing, fraud, phishing, trolling, slander, bullying, threats, extortion, or hate speech, ANYONE who deliberately seeks to hurt people or otherwise disrupt sensible debate or the flow of information should lose their privilege to participate on the web site where the offense(s) occurred. First there should be a suspension, then expulsion. Period. I’m very pleased Sacramento Press has taken a leadership position and started to enforce this very philosophy.

You needn’t have been the victim of slander on the internet to adopt this zero tolerance policy I am suggesting…. anymore than you need to have been the victim of a shooting to adopt a zero tolerance policy towards gangs. All you need is a little empathy towards your fellow man. I know that’s a tall order for people who have never learned how to empathize.  These are the same folks who, e.g., will not attend a neighborhood crime prevention meeting after an, e.g., string of home invasions, on the basis that they haven’t experienced a home invasion.

I’ll never forget some of the conversations I had in Natomas with residents last year. A few people actually had no clue there was a crime problem.

Me to a neighbor: “Are you going to the crime meeting tonight?”

“Crime meeting? No, I don’t have any problems with crime here.”

“But your neighbors are being robbed and raped and terrorized.”

“Well they probably left their garage door open or something. That’s their fault. Plus there is a game on tonight I don’t want to miss.”

I’m hoping you are shaking your head in disgust right now. If you aren’t, you might check  your empathy level and perhaps  find out why you aren’t concerned about what is happening in the world around you. You might also consider this: just because it wasn’t you THIS time, it damn sure might be you NEXT time.

Oh I know, you’ll deal with that if and when it happens to you. I know so many people like this. They only take action if something happens to them. Kind of like the way the government reacts . Some people are proactive, others are reactive. Some people like to focus on preventing problems, other prefer to clean up messes as they occur. The latter is far more expensive and damaging. Ask Katrina victims. Ask Gulf victims. As the families who have lost their children to gang violence. [Just yesterday I read about another anti gang initiative about to launch in Sac. Great thing, but where are the programs that keep vulnerable, at risk kids out of gangs in the first place?]

Sadly, we are a REACTIVE society, and so many people don’t get involved until something happens to them. The Sac Bee is a great example of reactive policy rather than proactive one. Personally I think the Bee and other companies should not even be considering charging for content until they clean up their virtual offices and make them safe environments for people of all ages, political persuasions, sexual orientations, intelligent quotients, ethnic backgrounds and so forth. As it stands, they are not. As it stands their web sites are being occupied by web pirates, and untiul they are purged, I wouldn’t give the Bee a dime of my money. I hope you wouldn’t either.

Ironically, Bee Senior VP Melanie Sill is a staunch opponent of anonymous blogging, yet at the same time her company is arguably the most prolific enabler of it in the region. No wait, that is not irony. That is good ol’ hypocrisy. (PS: when is the Bee going to stop posting anonymous editorials?). Even though Melanie Sill knows who I am she still gets on me if I don’t sign my name to my emails fr0m my Joe Sac account. “Mark is that you?? Why don’t you sign your real name?”  Hmmph. Why don’t your writers sign THEIR names to your editorials, Melanie?

I want to be clear. I think there is a place for anonymity on the net. Personal blogs is one such place. Personal blogs are like TV channels; if you don’t like one’s content, you have the OPTION of ignoring it. For instance I have never seen a moment of programming on Oprah’s ‘OWN’ network, and chances are I never will. Works for me.

There was a time when this blog was anonymous. I was unfairly vilified for it by local media personalities. Unlike other loudmouths who aren’t questioned for being anonymous, I was called a “chicken” in the SacBee for not divulging my identity–and I never once stated a single personal attack on a fellow citizen here.  I even had community members emailing me and threatening to  “out” me. (!)

But alas, when I “came out” none of these people were anywhere to be found. Wonder why. I know why. They THOUGHT this web site was some sort of specious political storefront. When they found out it was nothing more than a colorful, passionate, pathological weirdo flexing his opinions, they were like, “Oh.” Nothing follows. Haven’t heard from a single one of them. My monthly hits have continued to rise ever since.

But again, this is my site. I pay for it. Furthermore I only criticize public figures here.. public figures who are making life and death decisions on a daily basis.  I have every right. Conversations about public figures SHOULD be spirited, and even caustic. I am not thwarting progress here. I’m promoting it by challenging ideas. I have promoted civil debate here since day one. I have banned multiple offenders for attacking others and I don’t tolerate personal attack and never will.

The public forum, such as on the SacBee’s web site, on the other hand.  is a completely different situation. Here we have people from all walks of life trying to weigh in on important decisions and they are getting torn apart by blood thirsty trolls whose only agenda is to force feed the world their opinions… without ever giving them the OPTION to turn the channel.

On Sac Press’s web site one commenter (I stand corrected, I thought it was Fifth Generation but it was  Cogmeyer) stated he is ok with offensive posters because he can simply pass over their comment if he wishes.

But frankly we are all adults here. Every single one of us could have simply ignored [the offender's]  comments and continued the conversation as if she wasn’t in the room.

I totally disagree.  He is ignoring the entire dynamic of nested comments. One person replies with a nasty post, then twenty people respond and the rest of the entire thread is devoted to that one comment. In order to “ignore” the offensive comment, one would have to skip the responding twenty comments, too.  So this whole “ignore them if you don’t like them” business is not the answer.

This is also why an “IGNORE USER” option would  not work. Because comments are “nested” in strings and even if you ignore the assailant who made the original offensive comment, you’ll still see all the replies to it, and often times you end up seeing the comment anyway because people will quote it in their replies.

The bottom line is that no matter how much value a troll adds in his or her non offensive comments, the damage they cause with the offensive ones overshadows any good they are doing.  The most brutal mafia dons in history went to church on Sunday and gave hundreds of thousands to charity by day, but bludgeoned their enemies with baseball bats by night.We didn’t give them a pass because they were doing good on Sundays. We penalized them for breaking the rules. In those cases we banned them from society by sending them to prison. In the case of internet offenders we should simply ban them from the public conversation.

A friend of mine posted a message to Facebook yesterday: “If you have something to say, say it to my face.” Yeah, Polly I could not agree with your more. That is some old school grown folk talk right there. What happened to that? Even when this site was anonymous I still was willing to meet in person with any of the public officials I criticized on this site.

I also met with readers whenever they asked me to. I never “chickened” out. I was even out in the community with John Dahilig and Jim Knapp shooting video. Matter of fact I even met with the organizers of the Fort Natomas rebuild to discuss their frustration with my criticism of the project. We shot a bunch of video of the project and were going to post a very critical article about it here. The organizers asked me not to. I honored their request and never posted the video or article… out of respect for them.

So don’t humor yourself . I have always manned up and stood behind my words. I even tried to interview Heather Fargo and she wouldn’t reply to me (she nixed the Natomas Buzz’ interview request, to0). I will meet with anyone who wants to talk to me, and you can rest assured I will be nothing but 100% respectful and professional no matter how much I disagree with your viewpoints. It’s called COMMON DECENCY.

The truth about character assassins is that they are ignorant. They use racial slurs, they attack people’s physical and mental dispositions, they discriminate against people for their sexual preference and ethnicity, they vilify people who are the victims of accidents (on the grounds they are “stupid”), and they generally do everything in their power to drag people down to the sewer with them.  They have their reasons. I’m sure they are miserable people. That’s fine. I won’t judge them. But let’s stop kidding each other;  these people don’t want to see progress. They want to block it. Those that enable them are no better.

Think about it. If  one is truly committed to PROGRESS and EVOLUTION and PERSONAL GROWTH, why the heck would they call  people names and assassinate their character?  Stop defending vulgarity, profanity and hate speech as passion. Name calling is only a filler for gaps in one’s knowledge. It is a desperate measure used by those who have nothing else of substance to add to a conversation.

In conclusion, if your goal is to EDUCATE and ENLIGHTEN people, if you are really part of the solution, why would you do it with a baseball bat? You wouldn’t. Sorry but anyone who thinks you can enlighten someone by hurting their feelings has no idea what the $#%@ they are talking about. That’s how drill sergeants operate.  It only works for them because if you don’t do what they say they’ll throw you in a stockade!

So how should we act when we are offended by someone’s position or when they disagree with us and it gets us hot under the collar? Well, we DON’T act like the good mayor Kevin Johnson did the other night. That was a 30 minute expose on what NOT to do. For an example of how we SHOULD act, I think we turn to one Dr Martin Luther King for an example…

Dr King was a dignified man who respected human dignity. He sought to educate, enlighten, inspire and ENCOURAGE people to aim higher. He did it without ever even muttering a profane word. Quite the contrary in fact. He preached PEACE and quoted Jesus! Not only that, unlike other people who didn’t want to get involved because they themselves were not victims or racism, Dr. King exercised one of the greatest examples of EMPATHY in history when he stood up for ALL people who had been discriminated against.  In other words, Dr. King didn’t have to be a lynching victim to empathize with those who had been lynched… just like I don’t need to be Mexican to disapprove of discrimination..

If we want progress we should exercise one of Dr King’s most stirring quotes ever “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” AMEN!  This is the same reason I am dead set against the AZ boycott law (but not a fan of boycotting AZ because of it)…. but that’s another long, rambling article entirely.

Have courage, use your real name and stand behind your convictions and beliefs–especially if you are going to attack someone’s character. Say it to their face if you feel that strongly about it.  Set the example.  Be a leader. Stand your ground and respect people as you want them to respect you. Exercise the GOLDEN RULE (do unto others..). Don’t let people run down and bully your fellow citizens and attempt to silence them (even if yu are in agreement with their politics). Everyone’s voice should be heard.

And whatever you do, don’t feed the trolls. We have fed them enough (I know I have fed them far too much already).

Should the public allow Ray to sweep this little inconvenience under the rug, or should there be a penalty?

First, thanks to everyone who contributed to the Good Samaritan fund! We raised $80 and I will be delivering that money to Kim from the Sacramento Bee today or tomorrow. Many thanks to all who gave selflessly.

How about Tiger Woods? I hear he is desperately trying to save his marriage now. 97% of people in a recent poll said his marriage can not be saved. I am in the 3% that disagree. Having had a marriage that was in shambles and then completely saved, rehabilitated and restored to excellent health, I can testify to the power of reconciliation when two people are both committed to success. This past August I began coaching a couple with a marital issues ranging from domestic violence to infidelity. It has been a long road back for them, but they are on the mend, and this Christmas is going to be a special one for them and their kids. It all starts with forgiveness.  Granted, both people have to want it, but it can be done with a good marriage coach and God’s help. I’m a witness.

Have seen a couple of good movies lately. Valkyrie with Tom Cruise was one I avoided at the theater, but was glad to see on video. My son and I loved this film and thought Tom Cruise was outstanding, as was the supporting cast. I had no idea there was so much dissent in the “Furor’s” ranks. The other night we watched Carriers. This was a B film about a virus outbreak. It’s not superb, but it’s good (albeit sometimes disturbing) fun. It’s Kalifornia meets Outbreak meets The Breakfast Club. Something like that. For $1 (Red Box) I give it a full 5 stars! Last night we watched “17 Again.” This one was more of the “cute” variety. Reminded me of a Disney film.. with a few twists. Sgt Dangle from Reno 911 was in it and he cracked us up.

Ski season is here. We’ve got our lift tickets and we’re headed up the hill for what looks to be some good skiing. This winter has been a good one so far. I can’t remember the last time Sacramento had a normal winter. How long has it been? Just as I started to get excited I saw a clip on the news about the drought in Kenya again.

Wow. This is a horrible situation. Only a couple years ago if you were going to Africa to see wildlife Kenya would have been one of your top destinations. Then the riots. Then a return to normalcy. Now famine and drought.  Turns out a lot of it can be traced back to bad management on the part of Kenya’s government. Whatever the reason, Kenyans are dying and wildlife is disapppearing at alarming rates. If you’re feeling philanthropic, go to Red Cross’s page and read about the Kenya relief fund, and donate.

Peace for now

After thoroughly enjoying the excellent post apocalyptic novel “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, I was excited when a friend told me a movie was in the works. I was even more excited when I stumbled upon a link in Google a few nights ago stating “The Road” had been released and was playing exclusively at Tower Theater! I immediately called my wife and asked if we could go.. that night.  We did. I was not disappointed…mostly.

If you’re not familiar, McCarthy is a gifted writer who also penned  “No Country for Old Men”–the Oscar winning film starring Tommy Lee Jones (one of my favorite actors) and directed by the uber talented sibling tandem, Joel and Ethan Coen. The Road follows the plight of a father and his adolescent son as they make their trek across a burnt out ashen America after what we can presume was a meteor hit or something of comparable magnitude.

I thought the movie was very true to the book. That’s a rare thing. Most movies fall well short. Not so with The Road. This film is truly the pixel equivalent of the book. The casting was superb. The main characters were eerily similar in both appearance and disposition to how I had envisioned them. The screenwriter also made some excellent choices as to what scenes to keep and what scenes to discard, without butchering the cohesion of the story in the process. Notable achievement!

My sole beef is with the soundtrack. The recurring clarinet motif  drove me up the wall, and I felt the abundance of dramatic music was overkill for the story– not to mention intrusive on the viewing experience.  The thing I loved most about the BOOK version of The Road was the vivid prose and minimalist dialog. When combined, those two literary devices succeeded in conveying the profound sense of loss and solitude one would feel if facing the deserted world as the main character must.

Since the director of this film didn’t have a lot of dialog to work with, he compensated by using an abundance of adjectival music to fill in the blanks. It didn’t work. By soundtracking the “blanks”  he killed  the crucial sense of destitution that could have catapulted this film into Oscar territory. Then again, in all fairness, The Road’s director John Hilcoat is no Robert Zemekis (“Castaway”). While Hilcoat has truly mastered the visual and storytelling aspects of filmmaking,  in this musician’s opinion he still lacks the skills to leverage sound as a cinematic device in films with little dialog. He would do well to study Paul Anderson (“There will be blood”) to understand that sound needn’t be melodic to invoke emotion.  In other words, a violin needn’t play lullabies to convey tragedy.

I realize the soundtrack is not composed by the director, but a great director has the musical ear to direct the composer, too–and that doesn’t appear to have happened on Hilcoat’s ‘ road’ to the theater in this case.

Overall, it’s still a very good film and I give it a strong 3.5 stars.

Poor Mayor Johnson is taking hostile fire again. Shots rang out all over the media kingdom today when two “ranking” [Republican] senators released information gleaned from an earlier investigation of St. Hope. Specifically the report states Mayor J offered to pay a young woman $1,000 per month in return for her silence about a groping charge she had leveled against the former St Hope boss.

To compound the issue for Johnson, none other than his fiance, Michelle Rhee, is alleged to have played–as one commenter quipped–”the cleaner” for Johnson when word got out about the girls’ accusations against him.

Rhee’s alleged involvement wouldn’t be too remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that she was a St Hope board member at the time, and is alleged to have told at least one employee that she was making the allegations her “number one priority.”

If you can’t read between the lines, the implication here is that a St Hope board member entrusted to do the right thing for the kids at all times MAY have helped a high ranking school official accused of groping one of them avoid prosecution. I’m not a legal expert by any stretch, but me thinks such an act would fall under the umbrella of obstruction of justice, if not aiding and abetting. Perhaps there would have been an element of conspiracy present as well.

At the time, Rhee was on the board of St. Hope. A former St. Hope employee who reported one of the allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct by Johnson told Walpin’s investigators that Rhee “learned of the allegations and played the role of a fixer, doing ‘damage control,’” the congressional report says. -Washington Examiner

But come on you thrill seekers, who are we fooling here? Certainly not the likes of the good mayor’s ardent supporters who will tell you this is all ancient history, and has been approved, stamped, and certified squeaky clean by none other than the Sacramento Police Department and the infallible U.S. Attorney. With typical Mayor Johnson flare Ms. Rhee dismissed the report today as  a “rehash[ing] of old allegations that have long since been dismissed and deemed meritless by local and federal law enforcement officials, including the Sacramento Police Department and the U.S. Attorney.”

So there! You nosey, blood-thirsty, rubbernecking, sensationalist voter vermin! As teens say these days, “You got told, son!” (Don’t ask). It’s high time you idol shunners get off your political high horse and do like the Romans do and celebrate the Mayor’s passion. Get with the program, comrades! And while you’re at it,  you need to give the mayor’s lady props for assimilating the SunKing vernacular so quickly. She talks like a seasoned Johnson PR vet!  Goes to show the best way to learn a language is immersion. Her statement is sharp, efficient, and bluntly dismissive–in other words it has all the markings of the ubiquitous Johnson name brand Sacramentans have grown accustomed to. In other words, she got game. Somewhere Col. Hannibal Maviglio must be cracking a proud smile.

On a related note, judging from the comments in response to this latest accusation against Johnson on the Sacramento Bee’s site, it appears as though Johnson’s online defensive contingent has expanded considerably since the last accusation outbreak. And to think Johnson wasn’t even the primary target of this report.  Clearly the senators aren’t as interested in shining the light on Johnson as they are in shining it on President Obama (who suspiciously fired a senior federal investigator who had  called for a criminal investigation into Johnson’s conduct). But then who needs ballistic testing when you can just go ballistic? Work smarter, not harder, people. Geez. I have to teach you everything.

And then there is the lowly public. Most of us just want the truth, but that appears to be a tall order when it comes to anything germane to the Mayor Johnson experience. Why oh why do we raise questions and call for investigations? Boredom?  Jealousy of Johnson? Spite? Morbid fun? Of course not. We seek truth simply because we are compelled to. We are programmed to. We needn’t make any apologies for that. I know I won’t.

On second thought, perhaps a little fun is in order. All this talk about ethics (cleverly disguised as mere political banter by those super clever types) is getting to be a bit of a bore. Perhaps some enterprising businessman will think to turn the KJ experience into a ride at some amusement park. I envision it replete with soaring peaks and low lying valleys like the graphic at the beginning of this article. My son says his favorite part of riding a rollercoaster is that point at the apex where the cars are suspended for a few seconds as they transition between climbing and falling. He says those waning seconds ticking off immedfiately before the cars succumb to gravity are “soooo suspenseful.”  I suppose that would be an apt description of the Kevin Johnson mayoral experience thus far.

Source: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Sex-scandal-could-threaten-Rhees-school-reforms-70658402.html