Monday, November 6, 2006

Predictions for Tomorrow

Well, I think Schwarzenegger will win another term...and by a pretty large margin. His opponent, Phil Angelides, has run about as poor a campaign as you could without committing some public act of sexual depravity with a nun, plus getting caught robbing the collection box while you mock the troops. Arnold, who was pretty unpopular in this state two years ago, has made an incredible comeback, partly by embracing a lot of Liberal causes and partly by lowering expectations of his own performance and then not doing anything too foolish. I thought he was a terrible governor back then. Now, I'm not sure I have any real quarrel with anything he's done lately. I'm not even sure who I'm going to vote for in this race.

The ballot propositions in California and Los Angeles are rather maddening. An awful lot of them are the kind that seem like really good and/or necessary moves if you just hear a one sentence description. The devil, as they say, is in the details and I suggest you do a little research and not buy anyone's summary of anything. Proposition 90, for example, sounds like a move to prevent the government from seizing your land for anything other than a legitimate government-related purpose. I'd get behind that but the actual proposal (read it) would lay the groundwork for anyone whose property is impacted by any government action to sue for any theoretical loss...another one of those "goes too far" correctives. I'm voting against it but study up on it before you vote either way.

We have a lot of bond issues, most of which are proposals to spend money for education, spend money to clean up our water, spend money to fix levees so a Katrina-like disaster can't occur here, etc. In another time and state, these matters would be paid for out of the general fund with current dollars, rather than to float bond issues that will probably be covered with whopping tax hikes in the future. But that's how the game is played these days, isn't it? Elected officials don't want to curtail spending and they certainly don't want to get tarred as tax-raisers. So the answer is to manuever the tax increase so someone else will have to take the responsibility for it...and put bond proposals on the ballot that we, the voters, will feel we have to accept. I'm going to vote for some of them but I wish I didn't have to.

Everyone is saying the Democrats will take the House of Representatives so I'm assuming they will...by a narrow-enough margin that some Republicans will claim it as a moral victory for their side. The Senate? Who knows? I'm sick of pundits who pick and choose the poll that fits the story they want to tell...and I don't even think most of them are biased to one party or another. I think they're just looking to say something more than "Too close to call" about a lot of races that are too close to call. As Jack Germond once said of folks whose job involves making political projections, "We aren't paid to say, 'I don't know.'" Since no one's paying me, I'll say it: I don't know.

What I will predict is that we're going to hear a lot about vote fraud in any race decided by less than about three points. This is one of the many sad legacies of the 2000 presidential mess. We no longer trust any election that doesn't go our way...and in some cases, that distrust is probably warranted. (Most of my Democratic friends are hoping, of course, that their team wins big...but I have one who's hoping the Dems win control of the Senate by a couple of squeaker elections that are filled with irregularities. Just so he can tell Republicans, "Get over it!" The guy has a point. I don't think we'll ever clean up the process and arrive at a system everyone can trust until such time as someone is willing to entertain questions about an election that went their way. This will not happen in our lifetimes.)

But let's close with the important prediction. Tomorrow the new James Bond DVD sets go on sale so I'll predict that a lot of us who've already bought Goldfinger twenty times on home video will be stupid enough to go buy it again. I might, just so I can put this DVD on a shelf with my three other DVD versions, my Beta version, my two VHS copies, my regular Laserdisc, my reissue Laserdisc, my Criterion Laserdisc, et al. I'm leaving room for the Blu-Ray version and the I-Pod download version, and I'm still hoping to go full circle and see it issued in a one-reel, silent 8mm Castle Film. Some day, I'll have to actually watch the movie and see if it's any good.

• Posted at 10:57 PM · LINK

Rich Without Guilt

A little over a year ago, the New York Times put most of their opinion columns and online archives behind a subscription wall and called it Times Select. It suddenly cost fifty smackers a year to read Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman and the others and I, for one, shelled out for it...but just for the first year. A few weeks into that year, I discovered that everything I cared about was being posted for free in many locations around the web...all it took was a wee bit of searching.

I wrestled a bit with my conscience about not re-upping my sub. I think they have every right to charge for the material, just as I have every right not to pay it...and if I don't pay it, I shouldn't be able to read it. I finally decided it wasn't worth the fifty bananas and now I do without...to some extent. I do read the excerpts some sites quote under "fair use" and, shame on me, if I come across a Frank Rich column quoted in full somewhere, I do not avert my eyes. All I can say in my defense is that it's probably the most dishonest thing I do, aside from accepting money for Groo.

This week however, I can walk in the sunshine like an honest person. I'm not likely to be paid anything for Groo in the next seven days and I can read all those columnists, sans guilt. This week is Free Access Week over at Times Select...a fine time to catch up on all the Krugman you may have missed.

And you can wonder if the reason they're doing this is because it's now been around thirteen months since they started this deal and I'm probably not the only charter subscriber who disappeared on them when Year One was up. What kind of drop-off did they experience? I'll bet it was formidable.

• Posted at 9:51 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

The opening to The Flintstones in Hebrew. Maybe it should be The Flintsteins. Yabba Dabba Jew!

• Posted at 12:42 AM · LINK

Something Else I Won't Be Spending My Money On

I love it when Costco sells something really odd. A $3400 dinner with Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola is really odd.

• Posted at 12:40 AM · LINK

Star Attraction

Last Friday afternoon, Carolyn and I went to the grand reopening of the Griffith Observatory here in Los Angeles. It had been closed for five years while some $93 million was spent to make it a little larger and a little shinier. For the most part, it was a restoration as opposed to a remodelling, and some of the reviewers are saying that the place now looks pretty much the way it did when it first opened in 1935. I wasn't around then so I'll take their word for it.

The thing most visitors seem to be talking about is the procedure one needs to follow to visit the Observatory. You used to be able to just drive up there but the operators anticipated a huge crush of visitors when they reopened. So for an indeterminate time, you can't just motor up the hill. You have to go to one of two parking lots some distance away and take a shuttle...and you need to get an advance reservation for the shuttle. On the way up, they show you a little orientation video that mostly informs you where the restrooms are located.

This special section of the L.A. Times will tell you all about the renovation and the new features. If you're thinking of visiting, you might want to study a bit and decide what you want to see. I felt a bit disoriented there, unsure what to do in what order, surrounded by people who seemed to be in the same quandary. Some exhibits weren't yet open and the Wolfgang Puck cafe couldn't get their stove to work, which I guess is to be expected the first week. I assume things will get better but even if they don't, it's great to have an important L.A. landmark open again and looking good.

• Posted at 12:28 AM · LINK